


Dare the Thorns

by mirrorstone



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Monster culture, Yiga Clan - Freeform, frank talk about hunting and animal death but no graphic descriptions of gore or killing, hylian makes friends with bokoblins and moblins, probably more talking about food than anyone is interested in, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22747969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirrorstone/pseuds/mirrorstone
Summary: When Shrike, a wandering Hylian hunter, finds herself injured out in the wild, she doesn't expect help to be coming. It does anyway, in the unlikely form of a curious bokoblin. Shrike makes the choice to cast aside what she's always been told about monsters, and follow the strange friendship as far as she can go.(I spent too long wearing the bokoblin mask to hang out with my new buddies, and wished Link really could befriend them. This fic is the result.)
Comments: 66
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shrike gets injured and encounters two different monsters. One encounter goes the way she expects, the other one not so much.

“When I find the motherfucker who sold me that damn map, I’m going to skin him.” Shrike was trying very hard not to think about the fact that she was unlikely to live long enough to find the motherfucker who’d sold her that damn map. “Prime hunting area my ass. No monsters for miles around, damn his fucking eyes. All dangerous areas clearly marked, that shit-eating bastard.”

The map had been accurate enough when it came to topography, but it had failed to include a few key features of the landscape. One being the treacherous hills and ridges, mostly made up of loose shale deposits, that looked stable right up until you put your weight on them and the whole thing went sliding down the slope. The other was the fact that there was a monster camp smack in the middle of the ruins. She’d run into the former while attempting to avoid the latter, and was now stuck at the bottom of a treacherously steep slope, that had looked gentle and grassy right up until she put a foot wrong and it turned out to be hiding a drop-off in the shrubbery.

She wasn’t getting back up it anytime soon, she knew that much. Her ankle was either broken or sprained. She couldn’t tell which, but it was very swollen and it hurt like hell. There was a little creek running through here, and she’d dragged herself over to it and immersed her ankle in it, thinking that was probably one of the things you were supposed to do. How did you tell the difference between a sprain and a break anyway? Did one hurt more? Was she supposed to wrap it, or would that make it worse?

Anyway, she’d soaked her ankle until it hurt less, and then crawled back to her pack, trying to keep her weight off it. If all the trees weren’t up at the top of the hill maybe she could have made herself a crutch, but for now she was stuck waiting for help. She’d met a pair of sisters who foraged for truffles on the road a few days back, maybe they’d pass through here and she could flag them down.

She looked up hopefully at the sound of someone making their way through the foliage, down a gentler section of the slope than she’d taken to get here. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, her, or the moblin who emerged from the trees.

It raised its club. She raised her bow and loosed an arrow, dimly thankful for the instincts that made her hands take over and move without needing input from her brain, which was stuck in a loop of “fuck fuck fuck.” But in her hurry, the arrow went speeding past its head instead of burying itself between the moblin’s eyes where she’d wanted it. She nocked another arrow without looking and raised her voice to pretend that had been a warning shot instead of a miss.

“Back off, or the next one goes through your eye,” she threatened. Everyone knew monsters understood a few words of Hylian, even if all they usually spoke in was unintelligible grunts and snarls. “I’m already a good shot, and I can’t miss at this range.” It seemed to understand her, since it didn’t come closer, but it didn’t back off either.

“Hylian small. Weak.” It’s words trailed off into a series of guttural snarls that might have been words or just animal growls, long lips rising away from its snout to bare fangs as long as her fingers.

“An arrow is small too, but we can both kill you anyway,” she retorted. “Hylian is strong enough to hold a bow with a fifty pound draw weight, which makes the arrow a lot more likely to kill you.” It snorted explosively, hefting its club at her.

“Club kill more.”

“Not if you can’t get close enough to use it.”

“Hylian sleep.”

“With one eye open,” she retorted. “And my bow next to me. I see or hear anything, I’ll shoot first and shoot again second.”

The moblin considered it anyway. She could see its snout twitch and its beady little eyes narrow as whatever passed for its thoughts whirred away in its head, before it slammed its club into a nearby sapling with a roar. The little tree shattered. She had to work to keep her expression blank. Her brain was still scrabbling in circles of “fuck fuck fuck” and not providing much help with that.

“I’m not impressed. Get.” It let out one last snarl that she swore sounded sulky before turning and leaving. She held the arrow nocked for another minute before relaxing it. The whole exchange couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes, but her arms were shaking at having held the bow at full draw for so long. (At least she told herself that was why.)

She might be useless with a sword, but stealth and her skill with a bow and arrow had always been enough to keep her safe when she was out roaming the wild. She’d had to learn the skills, growing up the oldest of four children, since her father had needed help with his hunting to feed them all. She’d honed them in her travels, and they’d stood her in good stead. The same skill she used to sneak up on a deer could be used to sneak around a monster camp. But now she felt unpleasantly like the prey rather than the predator. More specifically, like a sitting duck. If the moblin went back for the rest of its camp and they all rushed her, her skill with a bow and arrow wasn’t going to help her much, and she couldn’t run. She was just going to have to hope their attention spans were as short as she’d heard, and that it would have forgotten about her by the time it got back to camp.

* * *

She had always been able to sleep lightly when she was out on the road. That night she woke not to noise but to silence, the silence of crickets and night-calling birds falling quiet as something bigger than them passed by. And the silence of someone trying to sneak into her _camp_. Her eyes flew open as she sat up and grabbed her bow in a single smooth motion. Her father would have been impressed. Too bad she hadn’t had the foresight to leave her arrows just as close to hand.

“Who’s there?” she demanded squinting into the dark, her banked fire just enough light to make everything look like a threatening shadow. She had to grope around for her quiver, and the first arrow she fired at the lumpy silhouette that raised its head at her call was too hasty, poorly aimed in bad light, just trying to keep the intruder startled enough not to come closer. The bokoblin (she could see it more clearly now, the big ragged ears and hunched posture) squealed in alarm and bolted with an uneven, bumpy gait. She kept the bow raised, arrow nocked, for another couple of minutes, ears and eyes straining for the slightest hint of returning monsters.

She nearly wasted an arrow jumping when the wind blew something down the hill at her from the direction the bokoblin had come from. But it was just a rattle of apples bumping down the hill, followed by something that spun and skipped off the ground. She reached out to catch it before the wind could blow it away entirely. It was a crudely woven basket, made from the thick blades of the tall grass that grew so abundantly around here. For one absurd moment, she thought it was one of the little baskets children wove for the spring celebration, to fill with flowers and berries, then sneak onto people’s windowsills. It was just big enough to hold a few apples, and apparently had, as the apples that had finally settled on the ground nearby were clearly freshly picked.

She snorted and tossed the basket away. So it’d been out gathering food and decided it might as well help itself to her supplies while she slept, had it? Nice try.

She spent the rest of the night dozing upright against her pack, making sure that her quiver was more easily to hand this time, but nothing came back.

* * *

By the next morning, she was starting to worry about firewood. She should probably have been worrying about food, but there was water here and you died of thirst a lot faster than hunger, and you died even faster from the things a fire kept away. There’d been enough deadwood collected down here for her to crawl around and collect, but probably not enough to last her the recovery period for a sprained ankle, and definitely not enough to recover from a broken ankle. (Actually, the amount of driftwood she’d found down here argued that the creek got a lot bigger than this, so there was a third possibility that there’d be a heavy rain and she’d drown in a flash flood before anything else got her.) Besides, most of her food was preserved, not fresh, and it needed cooking to make it palatable. She guessed she could eat the dried oats she’d brought for porridge as they were, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. She’d eaten the three apples, core and all, for breakfast because with the bruising they’d gotten rolling down the hill they wouldn’t last long anyway. She wasn’t going to turn her nose up at free food, even if it was kind of stolen.

She jumped at the sound of something moving towards her, which she realized was another apple rolling down the hill at her, and that at that angle someone had to have set it rolling. Her first thought was distraction, ambush, and she raised the bow up, looking wildly around for the charge she was expecting. She’d take that moblin bastard out with her like she’d promised if nothing else. But no enemies appeared, and the apple came to a slow rolling stop by her feet. Another one came rolling down the hill and still made her jump a little, but nothing.

“Who’s there?” she called suspiciously.

“There,” a harsh voice echoed her, and that really did make her jump again. A shape rose from behind a jumble of rocks, ragged ears and a short snout. She swung her bow up to aim and it ducked down again. “Whoz there,” it called again. “Broc there.” She kept her bow aimed steadily at the spot in the rocks where it had vanished, glancing wildly over her shoulders to the left and right. If this was a distraction, it was a hell of a good one. The bokoblin didn’t come out from behind the rocks again, but a clawed red hand emerged and rolled another apple down the slope at her. She looked with sudden suspicion at the first one. Did bokoblins have poison?

“If you’re trying to poison me, I’m not going to eat this,” she called up the hill for good measure.

“No hurt. Shh, shh, no hurt.” She’d never heard a bokoblin offer anything like parley before, but in the end it was the absurdity of being shushed at like a nervous horse that finally made her lower her bow. The bokoblin must have been watching through a gap in the rocks, because a moment later it slowly raised its head to look down at her again. She almost swung the bow up again when it bared its teeth at her, until she realized it was grinning. “No hurt?”

“No hurt,” she echoed suspiciously. She didn’t put the bow down, but that seemed to be enough for it, as it began makings its way slowly down the hill. At first she thought it was trying to put her at ease by going slow, until she realized that one of its legs was twisted, the foot held stiffly and at an odd angle. It couldn’t move fast. That did make her feel a little better, but it was strange too. She’d never seen an injured bokoblin before; or rather she’d never seen one with evidence of a healed injury. They came back even if they died with every rise of the blood moon. Did it not heal them when that happened?

It came to a stop a few yards away from her. Far away enough that it couldn’t lunge at her, especially not with that foot, but still easily within bow range. It seemed a surprisingly sophisticated gesture to put her at ease from a monster.

“No hurt,” it repeated, crouching down to put itself on her level. “Broc there.”

“What… about the rocks?” she asked now truly baffled.

“Broc,” it repeated, tapping its chest. “Boko, Broc. Hylian….?” It paused, gesturing at her. It was was telling her its name, she finally realized. And asking for hers.

“Shrike,” she answered finally, after what was probably too long a pause.

“Shrike hurt there?” it asked, tapping its head pointedly, and she bristled when she realized the teeth were showing again in an amused smile.

“My head is fine,” she snapped, which only seemed to amuse it more.

“Shrike heyid hurt if Shrike not know Shrike.”

She was trying very hard to be outraged at the fact that a bokoblin of all things was insulting her intelligence, but… the stupid joke just reminded her so much of the equally stupid jokes her little brother had used to make whenever he could possibly manage. He’d used to get her every damn time she came down for breakfast with “My name’s not ‘morning’ it’s Kent! Did you forget me in just one night?” Even the smile, red and be-fanged as it was, had something of the same impish quality, and that was what finally let an amused snort escape from her, that quickly turned onto a full on laugh, not even at the joke so much as the absurdity of the situation, building into a nearly hysterical relief of tension until she was gasping for breath and wiping tears from her eyes. She ignored the look of concern the bokoblin was giving her as she caught her breath. (Until that moment, she hadn’t known they could look concerned about anything but their prey escaping.)

“Shrike leg hurt?”

“I… yeah. I fell.” She gestured up towards the steeper slope she’d slipped down. “Hurt my leg. Hey!” She yanked her leg back as the bokoblin leaned forward and reached for it.

“Shh. No hurt,” it repeated. “Broc see. Broc… not hurt?” It looked frustrated, rattling off a string of sharp, barking words she couldn’t recognize. When she clearly didn’t understand, it leaned down and picked up a stick and a piece of grass. “Hurt.” It snapped the stick in two. “Not hurt.” It fit the two pieces back together and wound the grass around the break. “Broc not hurt.”

“Fix?” she asked incredulously. “You can fix it?”

“Ficks?”

“You… your leg.” She pointed. “It was hurt. You fixed it?”

“Yes! Fix!” Its ears flapped excitedly. “Broc leg...” It pulled the sticks apart again, holding them at an angle. “Hurt like this. Broc fix. Not all fix. Broc fix boko, mob… fix hylian?” He tilted his head quizzically. “Broc fix good,” he assured her. “Broc leg, long time. One fix. Now, Broc fix, fix, fix, fix. Shrike leg not like Broc leg.”

She hesitated. One the one hand, it clearly hadn’t been able to heal its leg all the way. On the other other hand, the demonstration with the twigs had looked pretty bad, and if she’d been in that situation, trying to straighten a compound fracture on herself with no anesthetic, she probably wouldn’t do so well either. And it sounded like it had been a long time ago too.

“You fix a lot of broken bones?” she asked. “Lots of other bokoblins and moblins?”

“Yes, fix lots,” he said proudly. “Broc fix in band, not fight. Fix things, make things… Long time, fix bokos not Broc band. Not now,” he said, ears drooping a little sadly. “Bands less. Bands stay, see less, move less.” He glanced over her and visibly twitched his ears up into a more neutral position again, crinkling his eyes at her in what she was starting to get the idea was the equivalent of a fake smile. “Broc fix. Good fix for Shrike.” And for reasons that she couldn’t adequately explain, she wanted to trust him when he said it.

“Okay. If you think you can fix it….” This time when Broc leaned in, she didn’t pull away, even from the uncomfortable feeling of alien hands poking and prodding at her ankle with surprising gentleness, although she had to keep herself from jumping every time the blunt claws pressed in. Broc pressed down a little too hard, making her yelp, and drew in the sharp hissing breath that seemed to be a universal sign of dismay in all Hyrule’s species.

“Bad,” was the pronunciation. She’d expected that, already knew it, but somehow it was worse to hear it from someone else. “Broken. Boko live.” Broc tapped the twisted leg in demonstration. “Other things not live. If deer leg bad, this bad, Broc is...” Apparently the sharp drawing of a finger across a throat was also a universal gesture. “Hylian live? Or…?”

“A hylian won’t die from a broken ankle,” she said. “I’m not a deer.”

She remembered, a long time ago when she was a child, her father complaining about taking down a deer some other hunter had already shot. ‘Poor thing was staggering through the woods, couldn’t even see where it was going, just looking for a place to lay down and die. Didn’t know it was already dead.’ He’d turned that into a lesson on why she should always make sure that anything she shot she took down clean, even if she had to track it ten miles to put another arrow in it. He’d emphasized it was about mercy, but it had probably been more because they couldn’t afford to throw away arrows without the meat to show for it. It had stuck regardless. She’d had nightmares about staggering through the woods at night, pierced and bleeding and dead without knowing it, but it had stuck. And here she was now, wounded and downed and wondering whether the one in front of her had tracked her down to help her, or give her the hunter’s mercy.

“It won’t kill me,” she repeated, wondering who she was trying to convince.

“Good.” He patted her leg gently, like someone might do with a nervous horse. “Shrike tough, like boko! Shrike stay, Broc go, bring fix.”

The more she watched him, as he scrambled back up the hill, the more she wondered whether his old injury was actually as much of a disability as she’d thought, or if it had been a show to put her at ease. He wasn’t as fast as the other bokoblins she’d seen, but he still seemed to get up the slope quicker than she would have expected, grabbing rock handholds and protruding roots to help him with the ease of long practice.

He was back about twenty minutes later, with another one of those grass baskets. This one seemed to be lined with leaves, and he was holding it like there was something heavy inside. He sat down in front of her ankle again.

“Good fix for hurt leg,” he told her proudly, gesturing for her to roll up her leggings away from her injured ankle, and remove her boot. She did so a little dubiously.

“Some hurt,” he warmed her, putting his hands on her ankle. “Fix.” She folded over the sleeve of her jacket and bit down on it, pretty sure she knew what was about to happen.

“Do it,” she said through gritted teeth. The jacket sleeve didn’t do much to muffle the pained howl she made when he set the bone properly, but at least it kept her from biting through her own tongue.

“Shh, shh,” she distantly heard him saying. He was patting something onto her ankle now, something cool and soothing that seemed to leach the pain away… As the red haze of pain slowly faded, she realized it was the contents of the basket, a mass of white clay with crushed herbs mixed into it that he was packing on like a poultice. It probably was, she realized, although the white clay bore a resemblance to the white clay markings she’d seen the moblins wearing. She supposed it would probably make a decent cast once it dried, as long as she didn’t move too much.

“Hey, Broc?” she asked. He hummed an assent, looking up as he finished packing the clay around her ankle. “How did you hurt your leg?”

“Broc fall from...” he paused, at a word that he didn’t know in Hylian. “ _Bwreehee_.” He blew the word out with his breath in a horselike whinny, and then drummed his hands on the ground to imitate the thunder of hooves.

“A horse,” she said, taking half of the stick he’d previously broken and drawing a quick sketch of one in the dirt.

“Yes. Horawrse.” He nodded, taking the stick to draw a blaze on the nose and a single sock on a hind foot. She wasn’t sure why he thought it was important for her to know the horse’s pattern; maybe he wanted to make sure she knew he’d been thrown by one of the wild mustangs, and not by one of the tamer spotted feral horses?

No, she realized a moment later, as he added on a semblance of mane and tail flowing as though mid-gallop, the tip of his tongue lolling out from behind a fang in concentration. He was doing it for the simple enjoyment of it.

“You like horses? _Bwreehee?_ ” she asked.

“ _B_ _wreehee_ ,” he repeated absently, putting his emphasis on the “ree” where she’d been stressing the “hee” instead. “Yes. Broc… friend horses. Horses scared, hurt, horses kick. Broc go slow, no hurt. Friend.” He was giving her a particularly intent look, poised, waiting.

“Friend,” she repeated, hoping he’d take the meaning she was trying to give it. “I want to know your word. Can you… tell me how to call you friend?” He beamed, and she was pretty sure that despite the language gap, he understood her perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, there's only so long I can spend hanging out with the bokoblins before I start feeling too guilty to kill them. They were my buddies! We shared apples! Anyway, it ran away with me and here we are. If you liked it, I'd love it if you dropped a comment or kudos and let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shrike and Broc get to know each other, and Shrike learns some things she didn't know before.

“This is an apple. I’m go get the apple. I’m bring the apple back the… the… bang? The… aw damn.” Shrike had almost a week of lessons under her belt, and she was a little proud that she didn’t even have to lapse back into Hylian to swear, since Broc had taught her some good ones already. He’d approved when she told him that the first things she learned in any language were how to ask questions, and swearing.

“The band,” he said in the same language, giving her the boko smile that was more in the crinkled eyes and the cheerful angle of his ears than bared teeth. She was picking up bokoblin body language too, on top of the spoken one. “It was good though! You’re learning our language fast. You already know a lot more of it than I know Hylian.”

“I’m teach you more Hylian too, if you’re want.” She suspected the gap in their knowledge was only because Broc had picked up most of his Hylian from overheard conversations or fleeing Hylians, neither of whom were willing to sit around and patiently trade words and conjugations like he was doing for her.

“What?” He bared his teeth in a patently fake outraged snarl, lips barely pulled back enough to show his fangs. The accompanying growl was just as fake, sounding more like something a kitten would make, as he switched to Hylian. “ _Broc Hylian good! Broc needs more? Who talk Shrike Hylian, when Shrike hurt? Shrike needs Broc_ _teach_ _Hylian!_ ” he growled, still trying to hold the snarl but unable to keep his eyes from crinkling with mirth. “ _Broc all things good, Shrike small._ ”

“Shrike sorry, small and sorry, Shrike bad,” she responded with a laugh, exaggerating her ineptitude in his tongue right back and hunching down in a show of fearful apology. “Only learn Broc! Broc teach Shrike all.”

“And don’t forget it! You do learn fast though,” he said.

“I’m good to languages. No. Good… at languages?” Broc nodded encouragingly at her. “I’m speak Hylian, and… and… the sand language and the bird language.”

“Birds?” Broc gave her a confused look and pointed at a nearby pigeon. “That’s a bird,” he said, enunciating the word clearly.

“No, big birds, talking, walking like Hylian. They live-” she paused to gesture north, “that way. We call them Rito.”

“Oh, Whistlers.” He shrugged. “We see them sometimes. Not often. They fly too high to shoot, we ignore each other. What are sand then?”

“Gerudo. They are… like tall Hylians, with red fur and brown skin. They live that way.” She gestured to the south this time. “Where it’s hot always and many sands.” Broc considered it for a moment and shook his head.

“I don’t know these Gerudo. Maybe we’ve never seen any.”

“They travel many, like I’m travel. Rito too, so I’m learned their languages. Rock people, Goron, travel a few. Fish people, Zora, I’m never see. They have to stay to water. I’m never met any monsters. Never talked to them,” she added quieter, a little more thoughtful.

“That’s… maybe better,” Broc admitted. “We aren’t like we used to be. The moon-rage takes more and more of us, makes them dangerous. And the rest… we fight Hylians because Hylians fight us. Both sides attack right away because the other side always attacks them anyway.” His claws tapped out the sharp, staccato beat of irritation against the ground, as he wrinkled his nose in frustration. “Everyone thinks with their weapons, these days.”

“Not all is as nice as you, huh?” she asked wryly.

“It’s been a long hundred years, and the red moon makes it harder. Getting killed hurts, even when you come back after. You still don’t want it to happen again,” Broc said mournfully, ears sliding from pinned back in irritation to a dejected droop. “No one just talks.”

“I’m glad you did,” she said quietly, which made his ears rise back to a pleased angle.

“Me too.”

“I’m met another monster, he hate me,” she said thoughtfully. “A moblin? I’m thought he wanted to fight me.”

“Blue moblin? Paint like this?” Broc asked, tracing the pattern of lines down his face.

“I’m not looking to the paint, but yeah, he was blue.”

“That’s Rivak,” he said matter of factly. “He’s our band leader, mostly. He’s been annoyed you won his-” he said a word she didn’t recognize, “and he went off to get dragonbone to make a better spear and try again. This time, he’s hoping you’ll be more-” he grinned at her, all his teeth showing with his eyes crinkled to show it wasn’t a threat and his ears cocked at a playful angle, and lapsed into Hylian, “ _impressed._ ”

“Wait, slower. I’m won what?”

“When you do something, say ‘I won’ not “I’m won.’ You won the hrreark.” He barked the h and snarled the r’s, in the way Shrike could never quite manage with her Hylian vocal cords.

“A...” she lapsed back into Hylian. “ _A fight? A challenge? A contest? A duel?_ ”

“I don’t know the word _dool._ It’s… sometimes a fight, but not only. You push each other, with words, with threats, with being dangerous, until one of them backs down because he thinks you could hurt him more. You didn’t back down even when Rivak made threats, and he thought you would hurt him more than he could hurt you. So you won.”

“Only because arrows move faster than he,” she said thoughtfully. “So what now? Why he’s looking for dragonbone?”

“To make a better spear. Dragonbone makes the best weapons, stronger, more durable. With a better weapon, he can be more of a threat, maybe win this time.”

“But if he’ll win, he’ll try to kill me.” Broc winced a little, and nodded reluctantly.

“I’ll talk to him, when he gets back. Tell him about you maybe. How is your leg doing? Could we pack up your camp and leave, and maybe tell Rivak you left?”

“No. I’m think- I think no walking. It still hurts. I’m not want to try it. No. Shit. I am not want- I want not- I not wanting-”

“I do not want.”

“I do not want to walk on it.”

“Okay. No walking.” Broc blew out a long, thoughtful breath, his claws idly tapping out the halting little pattern of dismay against the ground. “I’ll try to talk to him. He never liked being beaten, and especially by a Hylian, but I think I can bring him around.”

Shrike considered it for a moment. She’d been in situations before, where winning turned out to be a worse prospect than losing. There had been men at the stables where she’d stopped who’d seen her carrying the bow, and insisted on “seeing how the little lady shoots that big old bow” who’d couched it as wanting to give her some tips but had really just wanted to be seen outshooting her. They’d always reacted badly when she hit the center of the target more than they did, until it was easier just to shoot poorly a couple times and be done in ten minutes than get dragged into a half hour of them stubbornly trying to beat her. She was proud of her skill, but she didn’t have anything to prove to people like that, and she didn’t want to waste her time trying. But the _hrreark_ seemed… different. Something with more ritual to it, perhaps, than someone puffing up to show off and push people around.

It didn’t sting her pride to make a few shots off-center so some stranger she didn’t care about could smugly give her advice about breathing in as she drew, and then go away. But if she’d… if she’d come dead last in a competition she’d expected to win easily, yeah, that would sting. She didn’t know that she could have been graceful about a loss like that either. Pride was a thing she understood all too well, and the more hard won, the more you wanted to defend it.

Granted, she still wasn’t going to sit by and risk her life for the sake of anyone’s pride. But if there was a way to lose gracefully, and let him regain some of that pride...

“I think… a hrreark is not being even if I not know- wait, do not know?” She went on at Broc’s encouraging nod. “If I do not know what it is. If I think we’re fighting, I think I die if I back down, then I never back down. Maybe tell Rivak I think it is not count, not a real win.”

“That might work,” said Broc thoughtfully.

“Do any.. any of your band know I’m here?” Shrike asked. Broc had been coming by for hours a day all week. He’d mentioned others in his band, and they had to know he was off doing something.

“No, they don’t know,” Broc said, ears drooping guiltily. “I tell them I’m collecting mushrooms, or looking for healing plants, or marking clay. I don’t always find them. As long as I come back with something, they don’t question it.”

“What if… what if you said you found a new friend?” she asked, thinking through the idea even as she spoke it aloud. “What if you’re not say I’m Hylian? They think I’m another boko… What things your band wants?” She’d seen them with their own style of shortbow, and while she didn’t have the seasoned wood for a bow, she had spare silk thread, she could probably braid them a better bowstring. Or maybe sew something, if Broc could bring her the materials, did bokobins sew at all? Most of the clothes she’d seen them wearing were leather, you could make those with an awl and some cord as long as you didn’t want anything with a fine seam…

“Meat,” Broc told her definitively. She paused, not having expected such an easy answer.

“Meat?”

“Rivak can only eat meat, and he eats almost as much as the rest of us put together. If we can’t catch something big, then he usually gets all the small catch. Sometimes he goes hungry anyway. Bands that live on the plains have the best horse-archers, but we mostly use the club and spear here. They’re not the best for hunting.”

“Broc.” She grinned at him, crinkling her eyes a little more and tipping her head back to splay her less mobile ears, as close to the boko body language as she could get. “If you can chase anything close enough to see of me, then I can get all the meat you want.”

“It would be running,” he said a little doubtfully. “And it might trample you-”

“Trust me, if it’s close enough to trample me, I can shoot it first,” she told him confidently. “You can take them back to your band, and tell them your new friend sends it. Not tell them your new friend is Hylian. If they maybe like me first...”

“Yes!” His ears pricked up enthusiastically, claws tapping out the fast, three-part beat of excitement. “Bringing food is… a band thing. It shows respect, that you want to be friends.” She got the feeling he was simplifying the concept for her somewhat limited vocabulary, but that she’d hit on something with enough symbolic value to give her a good chance.

“Just tell me when,” she promised.

“Could you get something now? Birds maybe, if I stirred them up from the bushes?” he asked. “I could take them back now, before Rivak gets here, so the rest of the band could start getting to know you.”

“Sure, how about over there?” she asked, pointing to a likely looking patch of brush well within bow range. She’d sometimes thought about getting a dog to help her hunt, but Broc did an excellent job himself, walking slowly through the brush, pausing to point out a pigeon he was about to flush, and then startling it into the air. He found two for her, and one of them was even sitting on some eggs, which he assured her the rest of the band would be delighted by. He gave her a quick lesson in weaving the grass baskets they used to carry things, and then he was off with the bounty.

It didn’t occur to her until later that night, when she was mulling over Broc’s words and what other ways she might ingratiate herself with his band, that his first attempts to befriend her had involved bringing her food. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about it, thinking of it more like a bribe to tempt a shy horse closer than anything more significant. But he’d said that a gift of food was important, meaningful. A symbol of friendship that she suspected went deeper than she understood. Or did it? She still had fond memories of sitting around the table with her own family back home, the warm sense of accomplishment she’d felt in knowing that they were eating something she’d brought for them, her little brothers proudly pointing out which of the vegetables they’d gathered and arguing over who’d found the biggest mushroom. Maybe they weren’t so different, and maybe she understood the importance of it just fine.

* * *

“Rivak’s come back,” Broc greeted her a few days later, looking tense. The band had reacted warmly to his “new friend’s” gifts, delighted by the birds and rabbits he brought back, and he had apparently been talking her up to the point that he thought a cautious introduction might be possible. But now that Rivak was back, he had to be introduced first, since he was was the leader.

“Alright, so we want to shoot him a deer, right?” Shrike asked. “It’s early for that, they usually come out at dusk.”

“I think we have to do it tomorrow,” said Broc nervously. “He has a new spear.”

“He found the dragonbone?” she asked with interest. Broc had told her some fascinating things about how they found it and worked it into their weapons. She was wondering if she could make arrowheads out of it.

“Yes. He’ll want to fight you.” Broc was practically vibrating from nerves, plucking a leaf from the ground and twisting it to pieces between his fingers.

“Sit down, it will be okay. The band likes me, right?” she asked, patting the ground next to her. He sat down with a thump and a long sigh.

“The band likes my friend. They don’t know you’re Hylian.”

“I don’t know any of them yet but I like them, same thing.” He’d told her some stories, about how Rivak liked to wrestle with all three of them at once, about the time Kree had gone after courser bee honey and spent the whole afternoon running from them, until she almost felt like she knew them. She was even strangely fond of the Rivak in Broc’s stories, despite the fact that her only face to face encounter with him had consisted entirely of threats to kill each other. Besides, it was kind of impossible for her to have spent the last few days hunting for them without developing some fond feelings. It felt nice, to know that her bow was providing for someone again, who might have gone hungry without her. She’d even crawled over to the creek and spent a few hours fishing one day, so that when Broc got there she could present him with the string of fish keeping fresh in the water.

“I think they might like you back,” he said with a pleased hum. “Even more if we can bring them a deer. Rivak is always hungry after coming back from a long trip.”

“We’ll get him a big one,” she promised. “So while we’re waiting, tell me more about a hrreark. Can you lose without getting hurt?”

“Usually. Sometimes they can get too worked up, or no one will back down and it comes to a fight, but mostly, it’s a challenge with words.”

“What’s it for, besides scaring clueless Hylians?”

“Status, in the band. You do it after a big fight or maybe a big hunt, the whole band brags and challenges and tries to use what they did to increase their status, but that’s usually not serious. Mostly, it stays the same and everyone just wants everyone else to know how fierce they are. It’s more serious if you wanted to challenge the leader for their spot, but that doesn’t happen much. Oh, and you challenge a band leader to a hrreark if you want to join their band.”

“Why pick a fight with someone when you want to get on their good side?”

“You don’t let it come to a fight. You tell them how strong you are, and then you surrender, and you say the words. You just want to let them know what kind of an asset you are to the band, but that you still respect them.”

“Yeah? What are the words for that?” Shrike asked casually, which did absolutely nothing to fool Broc, who gave her a mixed look of startlement and excitement.

“Really?”

“Maybe. It depends on how much Rivak still wants to eat me.”

“You’d say, ‘I surrender to your might, I ask for your protection.’ If you just want to not fight, only the first part.”

“Got it.”

They talked about it for a while longer, Broc going over the various formulaic responses, what they meant, and exactly how to pronounce them, while they waited for the deer to start showing up. She’d shown Broc a few days ago how to set up a lure with the salt she carried in her bag, and they’d been visiting regularly. She’d been watching them, getting the hang of their rhythm. She wouldn’t shoot a female at this time of year, and not the king buck who led the herd, but there was a small bachelor herd that usually showed up around this time of day. Broc went still and silent at her signal, as she delicately drew the bow back, her breathing slowing, her hands steady, all the world narrowing to the buck and the point of her arrow as she waited for the perfect shot… And loosed, and time sped up again twice as fast, her arrow flying, the buck grunting and stumbling half a step. The others fled in alarm, but her target lay on the ground, dead with her arrow through its heart.

When she had first started hunting, she’d felt guilty every time she killed, at the thought that she’d ended a life. But she’d watched the wild predators, the hawk, the fox, and the wolf. They didn’t feel guilt, only hunger. They took the weak and the sick, not out of mercy but out of instinct. She had to live as much as they did, but she could temper her kills with mercy and respect, take what the wilds could stand to lose and make their death quick and clean. And she couldn’t deny the part of her that felt a predatory thrill, a sense of triumph, every time she downed her prey with a well placed arrow, as she had now.

“Think this’ll win Rivak over?” she asked, as she and Broc worked on putting together a simple drag sledge out of branches that he could haul the deer back with.

“It will definitely help.” Broc wrangled it under the deer and gave an experimental pull, grunting with satisfaction at the way it more easily distributed the weight. “I’ll be back tomorrow and tell you!”

* * *

Broc was was back early the next day, as he’d promised, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Rivak really liked the deer!” he told her gleefully. “He had to go far to get the dragonbone, and the hunting was bad, he didn’t know the prey there like he does here. It’s harder to travel now,” he added, his excitement dimming a little. “The red moon made things different… But he was so glad to see the deer! He ate a whole leg raw because he was too hungry to wait for it all to cook. I told him about you, and Shree and Kree told him too, they like you a lot now, and he said...” Broc gave her a playful look, clearly waiting for her to show the appropriate excitement before he told her the news he was bursting with. It reminded her of how her little brother had used to do the same thing, hiding his newest treasure behind his back and bouncing in place while he waited for her to ask what it was. She leaned forward obligingly to get her ears at the right angle for interest, and tapped her nails against the ground in the pattern to signal eagerness. (She was starting to envy Broc his claws. She’d let her nails grow out a bit, but her emotions always sounded hollow compared to his.)

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“He said that if you were this good a hunter, you’d be welcome in the band!” Broc told her excitedly. “Of course, he still doesn’t know you’re Hylian. But you made the right gifts, and if you were boko, he’d say yes. I think there’s a good chance. If I bring him today, are you ready?” His tone turned a little more serious, less enthusiastic. “If you don’t want to after all, I can try to keep him away from here, and in a week or two I think you can walk a little, if I help. Rivak wouldn’t have to know you’re here.”

“Nah.” She let her ears lie to the side as much as she could get them, in studied nonchalance. “Let’s do it. Just, if he does try to kill me, promise you won’t be mad if I have to shoot him in the knee?”

“I won’t let him,” he promised her, patting her on the shoulder the same way he’d done to reassure her when they first met. “Should I get him now?”

“Now or never.” He nodded resolutely, and went, and she spent the time he was gone fiddling with the placement of her bow. Should she be holding it, or was that too adversarial? Would putting it mostly out of sight seem peaceable, or deceptive? She finally settled for laying it close to hand, visible but not an immediate threat, when she heard the sounds of someone coming through the brush; Broc’s excited chatter and a second low rumble.

“-your friend’s doing all the way back here, could she just come to-” She didn’t remember very well what Rivak had looked like the first time they met, tall and blue and threatening being about all she’d taken in, but he sure as hell remembered her. “ _You!_ ” he snarled. “ _Hylian_!” Broc had told her Rivak spoke less Hylian than he did, but apparently he was willing to use his limited stock to make very sure his previous foe knew that he recognized her and he was ready for round two.

“Me,” she said, pointedly using his own language back. “You didn’t show yourself like a warrior should the last time we met.” It was one of several traditional openings to a hrreark that Broc had taught her, all the ritual phrases more formal and more difficult to learn than their casual back and forth had been. Broc was looking studiously innocent while Rivak glared down at him, as though knowing exactly who was to blame for this. She caught his eyes when he looked back at her, challenging and direct, holding the contact like Broc had told her a warrior would to another warrior.

“A warrior always fights until he wins,” he growled back at her. She was pretty sure he’d only accepted her challenge, not because he took it seriously, but because even appearing to back down to a Hylian in front of someone who understood the gesture went against every fiber of his being. According to Broc, once the opening phrases were exchanged, they’d proceed to either brag, threaten, or insult, and that would set the tone of their verbal challenge.

“The last time we met, you sat out of reach like a coward the whole time,” Rivak growled. Apparently it was going to be insults. Well, she could work with that.

“You’re twice my size and you could snap me like a twig. I’m not stupid enough to let you get close. If I was such a coward, why were you the one who backed off?” It was a delicate balance, trying to blend the right amount of respect and insult. She couldn’t piss him off so much he decided to actually attack, but she couldn’t be seen to give in too easily either, had to hold her own. And too, if she wanted into his band, she had to show she respected his strength as a leader. It wasn’t in her to bow and scrape and flatter, but telling the truth, albeit more bluntly than even she usually did, that she could manage.

Rivak apparently noticed the balancing act too, the same way another monster trying to join his band would have been trying to stay on his good side while keeping up enough of a challenge to be interesting, and he clearly hadn’t expected it. He gave a frustrated snort, his ears canted back in wary confusion, but his claws still drummed out a pattern of threat on the handle of his spear, which was pointed straight at her.

“I’m not stupid enough to let you shoot me either. If you were a real warrior, you’d pick up a weapon and come face me in combat. I earned three warrior marks even before the rise of the red moon.”

“I killed a charging bear with the arrows you laughed at. I kept six people from starving in the dead of winter with my bow. I don’t have to prove I can use a spear too.”

“If you faced me like a warrior, you would lose.”

“If you faced me like an archer, you would lose,” she said, lifting her head and baring her teeth slightly, more show fierceness than genuine aggression. (She doubted her snarl was that intimidating anyway to someone with fangs as long as her finger.) She should have felt afraid, looking into the point of his spear, challenging him and goading his temper with carefully picked insults, knowing that if he chose to lunge forward, she’d be dead. But she wasn’t. Everything felt sharp and focused, the electric thrill of adrenaline singing down her spine. This felt like climbing a tall tree before a rainstorm, and clinging to the slender branches while they whipped about, like standing on the edge of a ravine and leaning in, knowing that she would fall if the wind changed. “If I faced you as a warrior, I would lose. I won’t pretend to be something I’m not. I know what I _am_ good at. I’m not ashamed of it.”

“And what do you think you’re good at, besides making threats from a distance?”

“It’s not cowardly to fall back from a threat you don’t need to face, or a fight you won’t win,” she said, a tacit reminder of their first meeting. “I couldn’t fight with your spear. I know how to fight with my bow, and I know how to hide when I can’t fight. I wasn’t made to be a warrior, but my bow fed your band, and it defended me.”

“Big words from a small Hylian.” But she could see him thinking, nonetheless, at the reminder that she’d brought gifts to the band, that he’d accepted game she’d provided. “You don’t have your bow to hand now, and I have my spear. What’s to stop me from making you face it as a warrior and claiming my victory now?”

“That I give your victory to you.” Bowing her head was the hardest part, breaking the intent eye contact she’d held through the entire exchange. She couldn’t watch his expression anymore, couldn’t gauge whether or not this needed one more push. It wasn’t in her to give up in anything, but she could think of this as one last challenge she was throwing at him, and hope she’d picked the right time to issue it. “I surrender to your might, and ask for your protection.”

She didn’t raise her head as Rivak’s heavy footfalls drew closer and he leaned down to look at her more closely, his breath ghosting over her hair as he took in her scent.

“If you’re going to kill me, don’t do it in front of Broc,” she said more quietly. “Please.”

“You’re injured,” he huffed. “Can you even walk?”

“No,” she admitted. So this was how she didn’t measure up in the end, deemed useless and worthless, nothing about her of enough merit to consider after all. It coiled inside of her, cold and bleak, and she didn’t lift her head.

“You challenged me to a hrreark when you can’t run if you lose, and you’re not even holding a damn _weapon_ ,” Rivak snarled. “No wonder you asked to join, you’re going to fit in perfectly,” he raised his voice pointedly, “because my band is made up entirely of troublemakers and rabbit-brained idiots!” Her head snapped up, enough to see that although Rivak had his teeth drawn back in an irate snarl, the cant of his ears was relaxed and amused. He turned to Broc, who bounced forward with unapologetic cheer.

“Am I the troublemaker or the idiot?” Broc asked cheekily.

“Both! You couldn’t have just stuck to bringing back injured horses and motherless wolf pups, could you?” he demanded.

“Does that mean she’s in? You didn’t say the words,” said Broc innocently.

“It doesn’t count if she’s a Hylian, I can’t believe you even taught one to speak,” Rivak grumbled, but she didn’t have to check his body language to recognize that the irritation was all a show, covering up amusement and a vague sense of rueful pride at being outmaneuvered. She’d experienced that for herself plenty of times back home. And then he looked back down at her.

“As you’d protect our band, so you’re under my protection,” he said, serious now despite his earlier tone. The words to accept a warrior into his band. “Don’t turn your back on us, and we won’t turn our backs on you.” There was a moment of serious silence, as they held each other’s gaze again, before he turned on Broc and the moment was broken. “And you! If you want to keep bringing home strays, then _you_ get to explain to Shree and Kree why we have a Hylian now.”

“Alright,” Broc agreed, just a little too quickly to make it seem like any kind of punishment.

“And if she can’t even walk, how were you planning to get her back?”  
“Well...” Broc went back to looking suspiciously innocent. “I was hoping our strong, brave, leader who protects us all might help with that?”

“You were hoping I’d carry her back like a packhorse, you mean,” he huffed. “Don’t get used to this, Hylian.”

“Shrike.”

“Shrike.” He leaned down and gathered her into his arms, careful of her injured ankle, and then stood up like she was no more weight than a sack of apples. “That almost sounds like a normal name.”

“Thanks, only one I’ve got,” she said, unable to stop the grin that was spreading across her face.

“And don’t think you’re getting away with this,” he growled at Broc, who was picking up Shrike’s pack. “You want to take her anywhere else after this, you get to carry her.”

“Fair enough!”

* * *

Soon the camp came into the view, the large, dome shaped rock and a fire out front, with skewers of meat and mushrooms visible roasting over it. There were two blue bokoblins watching the food cook, but they quickly abandoned it in favor of the new entertainment coming towards them, spouting questions in a rapidfire back and forth, their claws tapping an equally rapidfire rhythm of curiosity and excitement against the handles of the matched pair of knives they wore. Everything about them seemed to be matched actually, and they bounced back and forth, weaving around each other and Rivak, making it impossible for her to tell which one was which.

“Rivak! Why’d you bring us a Hylian?”

“Are we supposed to eat it? I don’t want to eat a Hylian.”

“Me neither! Why didn’t you bring us a duck, Rivak?”

“Broc’s friend sent us ducks.”

“And I brought you Broc’s friend,” said Rivak, as he set her down. “She’s joining the band.”

“This is Shrike,” Broc announced proudly. “Shrike, this is Shree and Kree.”

“Broc’s friend!”

“Broc’s hunter!”

“She’s Hylian?”

“Broc never said she was Hylian.”

“Yeah Broc, why didn’t you say?”

“Did she bring any ducks?”

“No food this time, sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I can catch you something later though.”

“If you can’t feed us, then I guess we’ll feed you.”

“It’s crane and mushrooms.”

“Not as good as duck.”

“Nope. Not even almost.”

“Sit down, we’ll get you food.”

“Rivak first.”

“It’s always Rivak first. But Shrike second.”

“It’s thanks for the ducks.”

Rivak was brought one of the whole birds that had been roasting over the fire, and Shrike, still playing back the conversation in her mind and trying to catch up to the current point, was slightly bemused to find a skewer thrust into her hands next. The meat on hers had been sliced into bite sized chunks, for which she was grateful, since she didn’t feel quite up to crunching into a whole bird bones and all like Rivak was. It hadn’t been seasoned, which made it a little more bland than she preferred, but the mushrooms it had been roasted alongside had mingled their flavors, and the fire gave it some pleasantly smoky overtones. Broc glanced over at her as they ate, ears tilted at a quizzical angle.

“Feeling settled?” he asked.

“I am, yeah,” she responded, surprised by how true it was. The crackling of the fire, and the back and forth of Kree and Shree debating which part of the bird tasted best was oddly pleasant. She’d spent a lot of time avoiding too crowded camping spots or courtyards at the stables, where too many loud, overlapping voices started to make her feel hemmed in until every sound felt as jarring as a physical blow. But something about this was just quiet enough, or maybe just familiar enough, to be comforting rather than uncomfortable.

“Good,” said Broc, clearly satisfied. “Now you’re home.”

“Yeah,” she said after a thoughtful pause. “I guess I am."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it realistic for someone to pick up that level of fluency that quickly? Possibly not. However, please note that:  
> 1\. Shrike picks up languages quickly, and having learned some others previously gives you a framework that makes learning further languages easier.  
> 2\. Immersion is a very effective way to learn a language  
> 3\. There is only so much dialogue and characterization I am willing or able to write in "me Tarzan you Jane" speak.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shrike gets to know the other members of the band.

Shrike had always been good at being still. When you were hunting, you had to be able to freeze, to still yourself and stay that way, so that not a single movement, not a single rustled leaf or snapped twig would alert the prey to your presence. She was used to the long wait, to staying crouched and motionless with her arrow nocked until a deer turned its head away, to ignoring when her leg cramped or her foot fell asleep. Being still was simply another skill she had cultivated.

Sitting still was an entirely different skill, and it was starting to feel like torture after an extended period of being enforced by a slowly healing broken ankle. She wanted nothing more than to get up and move, to walk somewhere by herself, stand on her own two feet. Her move yesterday to the bokoblin camp had helped a little, giving her a change of scenery to distract her. But that morning when Rivak had gotten up and headed out to hunt, when Broc had given her a cheerful goodbye as he left to gather food and herbs, she’d itched to go out with them. She just wasn’t used to sitting around all day with nothing useful to do.

Shree and Kree had remained behind, but they’d both immediately set about their own tasks, one of them working at carving something from a hunk of wood, the other chipping away at a chunk of obsidian. Shrike had lasted all of five minutes watching the birds fly overhead before asking if there was anything she could do to help. The two bokoblins had exchanged glances and jumped up gleefully.

“Shrike wants to help!”

“She can help!”

They’d brought her a wooden bowl and a round stone, and a heaping woven-grass basket full of dried herbs.

“These need to be ground up.”

“Ground right into powder.”

“As fine as sand.”

“A task fit for Shrike?”

She nodded, having started to get used to their habit of back and forth chatter. She crushed a handful of the herbs with her hands and placed them into the bowl, noting that the astringent scent resembled the ones Broc had mixed in with the clay from the poultice he’d put on her ankle, then picked up the stone pestle and started grinding the crushed herbs into a finer powder. Shree and Kree took this as their cue to flop down on the ground to either side of her. They politely focused on their own projects for a while, long enough for it to become clear that the lump of wood was being turned into another bowl, and that the obsidian chunk was becoming the blade of a knife similar to the ones they and Broc carried. However, when one of them caught her eye as she watched, they both seemed to take this as the cue that her task was no longer stimulating enough and cheerfully interrogate her.

“So tell us about yourself!”

“We want to know our new band member!”

“Where are you from?”

“What do you do?”

“Did you used to have another band?”

“What were they like?”

“I’m a hunter,” she said, making only the vaguest attempt to answer the questions in the order they’d been asked. “Mostly with my bow, but sometimes I use snares. I sell the meat and fur to other Hylians. I used to live kind of in the middle of nowhere, but the closest village was Hateno.” She paused at the blank looks they gave her. Presumably Hylian villages weren’t the most useful landmarks for them. “We lived in the woods, way south of here,” she said with a shrug, which got her some understanding nods.

“So who’s we?” asked… she thought it was Kree, the one working on the bowl.

“My family. There were seven of us, so things could get kind of crowded. Mom, dad, and four younger brothers,” she said with a faint smile, remembering it. “My dad’s a hunter, like me. He’s the one who taught me, and we helped keep the family fed. He was a great cook too. I’ll make you some of his recipes sometime.”

“Useful skills!”

“Very useful! Shrike will earn her hunter marks for the band in no time.”

“What about the rest?”

“Tell, tell.”

“Well my mom is a… she makes things out of clay, I don’t know the word.”

“A crafter!”

“Yeah. Alder, he’s the oldest after me, always took after her, he’s the one who decided to learn it from her.”

“So what did she make?”

“All sorts of stuff. Lots of-” She paused, realizing she didn’t know if there was even a word for “dishware” in monster language, “things to eat and drink with. She could slap a lump of clay on the wheel and put her hands on it, and it would be a perfect bowl in less than a minute.”

“Impressive!” agreed Kree (maybe?) who was rounding the outside of the bowl from its rough shape into something that would sit easier in the hands, with slow, careful strokes of the knife. “Wood takes longer, but it’s what I know how to work with.”

“Wood probably doesn’t break as easy,” she admitted. “You wouldn’t believe how we had to wrap everything up when we put it on the cart to go sell in town.”

“What else did she make?” asked Shree (probably.)

“Big pots to hold things. We used lots of those to store food over the winter. Pretty little things, ornaments to wear and put around. She made a lot of our toys too. These- things to make noise with, Whistles?” A look at their confused faces told her she’d used the wrong word.

“Whistlers like the bird people?”

“I don’t think they’re made out of clay.”

“Clay is too heavy to fly.”

“No, like this.” She put two fingers into her mouth and whistled, loud and shrill. “Like the alarm horns, but smaller. She used to tell us we could only play with them out in the woods where she couldn’t hear.” Shrike grinned at the memory. Despite her mother’s threats that the little clay whistles would mysteriously break if she had to hear them shrilling all day, they’d never met with more than the usual childhood accidents. “Some of them made nicer sounds.” She whistled a short snatch of music to demonstrate the fluting sound of the clay ocarinas her mother had started making once they were old enough to be interested in more than just making the loudest, longest noises they could manage. “My youngest brother, Kent, could play a lot of songs with his, but I never got the hang of it. Oh, and she used to make all these little animals for us, hang on.” She turned and went digging through her pack for the little clay bird that lived in one of the more cushioned pockets, wrapped up in a handkerchief, and held it out for inspection. It was simple, shaped more like a fat teardrop than anything else, but the painted lines of black and gray distinguished it as her namesake. “This is the bird I’m named after, a Shrike.”

“A thornhunter!” said Shree approvingly, admiring the bird but making no move to touch.

“Our Shrike is a fierce bird,” agreed Kree. Shrike held the bird in her palm for a moment, feeling the cool weight of it, before packing it away again.

“Yeah, dad liked names from nature, so that was what he picked for me and Alder. My other three brothers have more normal names. Trace came after Alder, he’s really good with leatherwork. He got married and moved into Hateno village, they run a shop now, and dad always brings them a load of deerhide when he visits. Hadrian likes plants and gardening, last time I visited he’d doubled the size of the garden plot and was growing a bunch of herbs I couldn’t pronounce. And Kent’s my youngest brother. He and I were always closest, so I guess no one was surprised when he decided he wanted to travel too. He’s off treasure hunting now, and he sends home these long letters full of weird stuff and crazy stories every couple months.”

“Sounds like a good band.”

“Why leave it?”

“Well, it was already crowded with seven of us, and more so when we got bigger.” She shrugged. “Alder and Hadrian wanted to stay, but I didn’t want to live with my parents forever. I wanted to cook whatever I liked for dinner and not have anyone complain that it was game stew with too much barley again. I wanted to go see things. I like traveling.”

“Ah, now we see why Shrike has a bird name.”

“A fitting name.”

“It must be!”

“And… look, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember which of you is which,” she admitted. “Who’s Shree and who’s Kree?”

“I had the idea for a knife, so I’m Shree today,” said Shree, apparently, holding up the obsidian blade.

“Today?”

“We’re siblings!”

“Close siblings!”

“Grew in the same pouch.”

“Born on the same day!”

“And we’re both crafters.”

“So Shree is the weapon crafter and Kree is the lirit crafter.”

As far as she could tell, _lirit_ didn’t have a direct translation into Hylian. She’d spent a lot of back and forth with Broc trying to figure it out, when he’d first used it. A knife wasn’t a _lirit_ , her boots weren’t _lirits,_ the flint and steel she used to strike a fire weren’t _lirits_ , but her backpack was, and so was a carved wooden fishhook. Broc’s explanation had been “you make a lirit, and you use it, it does something.” She’d finally concluded it meant something like “tools” or “useful things.”

“And… what do you do if you both want to make a knife one day?” she asked cautiously.

“A hrreark.”

“A vicious one!”

“Sometimes we fight to the death!”

“Blood everywhere!”

“And the winner makes their knife.”

“Yes.”

“That’s exactly what happens.” They both nodded very seriously, eyes wide with fake sincerity.

“And what if _I_ want to be Kree one day?” she asked, in faux innocence, since they both seemed to be enjoying themselves so much. “I just have to beat you two in a hrreark?” They considered her for a moment, heads tilted in thought.

“Wouldn’t work.”

“Nope!”

“Can’t do it.”

“You’re not blue enough.” That was the tipping point for bother of them, bursting into high pitched snickering as they were unable to maintain the serious facade, and Shrike couldn’t help laughing with the pair of them.

“I’m not supposed to be blue, you know,” she said, running a hand through her short-cropped dark brown hair. Brown hair, brown eyes, and pale skin, fairly common coloring that most of her family shared. Kent had blue eyes though, she wondered if that would have carried any weight.

“We know,” said Kree, patting her knee sympathetically.

“It’s not your fault.”

“You can’t help it.”

“Your eyes are a little gold?”

“That’s good! Gold’s the best color.”

“Blue is good too though.”

“Maybe you can work up to it.”

They went back to working in companionable silence for a while. Shrike produced a fairly large pile of ground herbs, Kree started polishing the inside of the bowl smooth with a rough horsetail stem, and Shree was carving a decorative, featherlike pattern into the deer antler handle for the obsidian blade. It felt nice, to be quietly working in tandem with someone. She wondered if she could ask them for materials to make arrows, and get some fletching done too.

“Done,” Kree announced.

“Also done!” said Shree. The two of them turned to her, holding out their finished work.

“For Shrike!”

“For Shrike!”

“You… these are for me?” she asked, hesitantly holding out a hand.

“They are!”

“Everyone in the band has one like it.”

“You should too.”

“You’re part of the band now after all.”

“I… thanks.” Shrike reached out to take them carefully, tapping out sincerity on the handle of the knife. “I’ll, uh, I’ll catch you a duck as soon as I’m up and around. Two ducks.” She was already thinking about one of the recipes her dad had cooked on special occasions. There were truffles growing around here, right?

“Two ducks!”

“Not bad for a day’s work.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Very welcome.” The pair of them tapped sincerity back at her, both beaming.

There were even more reasons to want to be up and walking now, but maybe sitting around wasn’t too bad either, when you had good company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, we finally learn what Shrike looks like! In amidst what would be tooth rotting fluff if Shrike wasn't allergic to expressing her emotions.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, Shrike gets some ducks for Shree and Kree, and continues to be allergic to expressing emotions.

“Careful, careful.” Shrike clasped Broc’s hands to steady herself as she stood, putting her foot on the ground testingly. “Just put a little weight on it, don’t try to stand yet. How does it feel?” he asked.

“A little stiff, but it doesn’t hurt,” she said. She put a little more weight on the ankle, cautiously, while Broc watched her like a hawk for any flinch or signs she was trying to hide pain. Gradually, she was standing on both feet, with Broc hovering (and Rivak pretending not to be paying attention while he hovered more obtrusively) as she took a careful step. And another. A little unsteady at first, then more confident.

“Does the ankle hurt? Sharp pain, dull pain? Itches, numb?” Broc asked anxiously.

“It doesn’t hurt at all. I don’t think I’m up to a ten mile hike through rough ground, but a little walking feels good, actually,” she said, testing a slightly longer stride now that she was no longer at risk of falling flat on her face.

“You should still be careful with it for a while, but it looks like the bone’s fully healed,” said Broc, eyes crinkling in a boko grin.

“Good, so she can finally start pulling her weight around here?” Rivak growled, mock sternly. “I accepted a hunter, who didn’t say until afterward she couldn’t hunt.”

“Hey, if you want to sit around camp all day grinding herbs and fletching arrows, we can switch any time,” Shrike retorted. “I can’t wait to get out and hunt again. There’s a lake near here, right? I promised Shree and Kree some ducks.”

“Tomorrow,” said Broc firmly. “Stay near camp for today, take it easy. Short walks, rest in between. If your ankle’s not as healed as I think, then let’s figure that out while you’re still close to camp.”

“Still close enough to make me carry her back again if she collapses, you mean,” Rivak grumbled, but without any force to it.

“Fine, mom,” she teased. “But I’m not grinding any more herbs for you. I’m never getting it all out from under my fingernails at this rate.”

“I think we have enough healing herbs for a while,” said Broc, although his ears twitched nervously when he spoke. But then he crinkled his eyes in a smile at her and she wondered if she’d seen it at all.

* * *

She stayed around camp that day like he’d advised, taking short, careful walks to test her ankle and confirm that it wasn’t going to give out on her, but it seemed completely whole again. The next day, she was eager to get her bow and head out into the woods, exchanging nods with Rivak as he left in the other direction. She had a promise to keep to Shree and Kree, after all, and had left them with a request for materials to help her keep it.

She went searching through the woods first, picking up a few of the edible plants she wanted, but mostly looking for the unobtrusive brown lumps that grew sheltered by the roots of some of the biggest trees. They were hard to find, usually hidden by leaf litter, and only growing in the roots of certain trees. But there was a particular type of insect that laid its eggs in the ground near truffles for some reason, and she kept her eyes peeled for the sight of them flying about near the tree roots, or for the curve of partially hidden truffles near the right kinds of trees. It took some persistence, and a lot of digging with her hands. But eventually, dirt-smudged and footsore, she found a small cluster of them, three lumpy brown spheres that she tucked into the foraging pouch that hung at her belt. (She was going to have to teach Kree how to make them. The leather pouch folded up shockingly small and it was a lot sturdier than the woven grass bags.)

A half hour’s easy walk brought her to the lake, as promised, with a flock of ducks gliding over the water. She had to do a little finagling to get the shot she wanted, since she had no desire to shoot a duck over the water and then have to swim for it, but she managed to bring down two with only a little ankle depth wading. Again, she thought vaguely about getting a dog, one that could point and flush game, then retrieve it for her, but she wouldn’t have the first idea how to go about training it. Besides, she probably had to win a hrreark against Rivak if she wanted to bring in another band member, or something. She took care of cleaning the ducks instead, away from camp where the mess wouldn’t stink or attract predators, keeping the good feathers for fletching and discarding the rest. She rubbed some salt on the skins as well, to help them crisp up when cooked later, and took a little rest before heading back. Her ankle began informing her that she’d overdone it a little as she was headed back to camp, but she was almost there anyway so she felt like she’d done a good enough job estimating what it would take.

Shree and Kree must have been busy too, because when she got back, she saw the pile of thin, flat rocks (all that damned treacherous shale around here could finally be useful for something) and clay that they’d gathered at her request, waiting for her. They waved cheerfully when they saw her.

“Are those ducks?”

“Are those our ducks?”

“Are you going to trade them for the rocks?”

“We brought you plenty.”

“I’d rather have ducks than rocks.”

“Yes, they’re for you,” she said, letting her smile crinkle her eyes more than usual to show her amusement the boko way. “And you don’t have to trade, I promised, right? The rocks are to help me cook them. It’s a recipe my dad used to make sometimes. I kind of thought if these were going to be a thank you, I might as well do something fancy.”

She’d sat down next to the pile as she was speaking and started sorting them out, and stacking them into place. Two sturdy columns, with clay between each piece to keep everything in place, and then one of the biggest pieces on top, with plenty of room for a fire below them. Then start building up the walls, careful and sturdy, choosing the piece best suited for each spot. It came back to her so quickly, the memory of her father teaching her how to stack each piece to keep it steady… Before she knew it, the stone oven was done, ready for her to start building the fire in the space underneath it. Stack the wood just so, some dried grass for tinder, flint and steel and a little gentle blowing on the sparks, and there it was, small but growing steadily.

It would take a little bit for the stone to heat up, but once it did, it would hold the heat beautifully and cook the ducks almost as nicely as the big cast iron oven they’d had back home. She stepped back to run an eye over her work. It didn’t look too bad, if she said so herself, well built enough that they could probably keep using it for a while. Once it heated up, it still cooked food faster than a spit over the fire, and she happened to think the flavor was better too. She was starting to regret only having caught the two ducks; maybe she could catch something else for Broc and Rivak to have a try when they came back... Shree and Kree started conversing again, bumping her out of her thoughts.

“Oh, I remember these!”

“You remember these rocks?”

“No the oven, didn’t old Tirk use to make them like that?”

“Yes, yes, and remember the apples cooked in honey?”

“Those were worth all the stings.”

“Most of the stings.”

“We’d have gotten stung anyway!”

“We probably would have.”

“We wouldn’t get stung if we left the courser bee nests alone.”

“But we probably wouldn’t have.”

“We wouldn’t!”

“Who’s Tirk?” she asked curiously, as she peeled the truffles, slow, careful strokes of her knife to remove the thinnest shavings possible. You generally had to interrupt if you wanted to interject something into a conversation with the twins. They didn’t seem to take any offense to it, mostly because they’d go back and forth all day without pausing any longer than taking a breath, just because they could.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Near the beginning I think.”

“So what’s the oven for?”

That took her aback a little, since it was the shortest exchange she’d heard from them, and they’d sounded less animated than she was used to. It was an obvious subject change and she could take a hint, so she showed them the ducks she’d been preparing. She’d scored the breasts, placing thin slices of truffle under the skin to flavor it. A sprinkle of pepper, a little more salt, and aromatic hylian herb rubbed onto the skin, and they were ready for roasting.

“They look good!”

“Very good.”

“Shrike is a skilled cook.”

“Wait until after you’ve eaten to say that,” she said, wrestling with the adjustable rack she put over her campfires to cook on when she wasn’t near one of public cooking pots. The legs took just the right twist and pressure to remove them from the rack, and she never got it right the first time. But once the rack was propped up on a few rocks, the ducks could go on top of it, she could slide her frying pan underneath it to catch the drippings, and then it was just a matter of waiting for them to be done.

Rivak and Broc came back a little while later. Both of them were carrying food too, Broc with a bag of mushrooms and root vegetables, Rivak with a goat carcass slung over his shoulder. Both of them sniffed the air with interest as they got close enough to smell the savory scent of roasting duck and truffles.

“Started dinner without us, huh?” Rivak asked, flicking an ear at her sarcastically, as he slung the goat off his shoulder and started tying it to the massive spit that sat over the fire. It was going to be hours before it was all cooked, and she could have kicked herself for getting so caught up in repaying her debt to the twins that she’d forgotten about the others.

“Sure did!”

“One for us and one for you, Rivak.”

“Aren’t you lucky?”

“Shrike made it special.”

“Toss the vegetables in the pot, let’s eat when they’re done!”

She turned to glance at Shree and Kree, letting the indirect look out of the corner of her eye and the slant of her shoulders speak her chagrin to them.

“I wasn’t thinking-”

“Sure you were.” Shree clapped a hand on her shoulder, visibly gentling the usual rough shake they’d give as a sign of camaraderie, and still managing to shake her back and forth. On the other side, Kree bumped a shoulder against hers in a similar gesture. (She’d noticed that whatever else, friendly gestures almost always involved touch, and apologetic ones used a posture that seemed to ask it.)

“Right from the beginning you promised two, right?”

“We don’t eat a whole duck each!”

“Not in one sitting.”

“Right.”

“So you had it the whole time.”

She reached out to put a hand on both of their shoulders, squeezing tight. Her fingers tapped silent gratitude before she let go, hoping that was enough to convey her feelings. She didn’t have the words for this, but it looked like maybe they weren’t needed just now.

They shared the duck with Broc, splitting it up among the four of them, along with the vegetables. Rivak had the other duck by itself, and made fairly short work of the same amount of food that had fed the four of them. Shrike was pleased by how they’d come out, with crispy golden skin and the rich scent of the truffles suffusing it, the flavor of truffle and herbs having sunk into the meat. Broc, Shree, and Kree had all been vocal in their praise, and even Rivak had looked up from his meal to grunt “It’s not bad.” But she couldn’t help but notice the pleased angle of his ears, the way he looked when Broc or the twins had accomplished something impressive (and the way he’d so often say one thing and let his body language say something else entirely.)

* * *

After what she’d thought was a fairly satisfying evening, it was a surprise to see Broc approaching her with a worried look on his face.

“We have to talk about something,” he said softly, angling his body to indicate he wanted to move away from the group a little, and not continuing until they’d moved a short distance away. “Shrike, tomorrow night, you need to find somewhere else to sleep.”

Her older brother had pushed her into frozen pond once, thinking she’d slip and fall on the ice. It had been so cold that all she’d felt was shock, at first, like a blow that was all force and no pain. And then she’d felt the cold, too cold to swim or move or yell, an uncaring thing that had taken away her ability to react.

That was what this felt like.

She was dimly aware that there was something she should do, questions she should ask, apologies she should make, that she should get her bag and walk until she wasn’t here anymore, but here she was, not moving or talking.

“Shrike?”

“I’ll leave then.” It turned out she could talk, but she didn’t remember deciding to. Had that been her speaking, or something else? All it sounded like was cold.

“No! No, not like that.” Broc’s anxious tone had turned to alarm now. “We don’t want you to leave. It’s just for one night. It’s the red moon tomorrow, I thought you knew.”

“The red moon.” She was suddenly aware again that it was a warm summer evening, not a winter morning.

“Yes, it’s… probably dangerous. When the red moon rises, well...” Broc’s ears were flattened in dismay, and he scraped his claws against the palm of his other hand while he looked at her from the corner of his eye. She wasn’t sure how much of his anxious body language was apology upon realizing he’d distressed her and how much was distaste for the subject matter, but that was okay. There was nothing wrong. She reached out to take his wrist and pull his hands apart, before he could claw scrape marks down his palm.

“I know about the red moon.” She’d stopped watching for the signs of it. Why bother when she was no longer afraid of the monsters it emboldened? “I don’t think you’d hurt me though.”

“We wouldn’t! We don’t want to.” Broc emphatically tapped out sincerity on the wrist of her hand that held his. “But when the red moon rises… it doesn’t just bring back the ones who died. All of us are… everything turns red.” He shook his head in agitation, like he was trying to shoo away an insect buzzing around his ears. “We don’t act like ourselves. We don’t always remember ourselves. And in the red, Hylians all look like enemies. Maybe we’d remember not to hurt you… but maybe we wouldn’t. It’s not.. it’s not that we… not even Rivak- especially not Rivak-”

“It’s okay. I understand it. I trust you not to hurt me,” she said, tapping sincerity onto his wrist back, “but if it’s like that, it might not be you. I get it.” It made sense, she supposed. She’d always heard that monster attacks went up drastically on the nights of the red moon, even in areas that rarely had trouble. People tended to assume it was because there were suddenly more of them, but if the red moon was linked to the Calamity’s power anyway… Well, it made sense that it would want everything it touched to attack the people it had tried to wipe out a hundred years ago.

“None of us want you to get hurt. If it was because of us...”

“There’s a stable a ways back on the road. I’ll sleep there tomorrow night,” she promised. Broc’s ears immediately lifted a little, the tense set of his shoulder relaxing.

“Good. Just for that night, okay? Then we want our band member back.” He squeezed her wrist and then let go.

  
The others must have known what they were going to talk about, because she noticed a certain ripple of relief through the rest of the band when she and Broc came back, conversation clearly over and having ended on good terms. That was the last they talked of it, and she wasn’t exactly eager to bring it up again herself. But she passed an uneasy night nonetheless, staring up at the star-filled sky and thinking about it. Broc clearly hadn’t liked talking about it, but if its influence was so strong that they could forget themselves, forget who was friend or foe… Shrike had always hated being coerced into anything with a passion. She knew Rivak was just as independent-minded. And Broc didn’t have a warrior bone in his body, even preferring to gather plants than hunt.

She wasn’t particularly looking forward to spending the night away from them, but she’d keep her misgivings to herself. Because she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe they dreaded the red moon more than she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have made only the vaguest of nods to the fact that a broken ankle takes at least 6 weeks to heal, please do not pay too close attention to the timeline. Let’s just say that Shrike has been eating lots of hearty foods and it helped her heal faster. You may imagine Broc gleefully bringing her delicious healing lizards. The section about how to cook a duck, however, is reasonably accurate. We can handwave medical details but god forbid the cooking be inaccurate. Speaking of inaccuracies, truffles in Hyrule grow above the ground, apparently, but we are assuming that’s game mechanics for the sake of convenience and not how it actually works. 
> 
> And oh hey, is that some plot that’s finally decided to show up or something


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shrike leaves, and then she comes back.

Shrike had probably left it a little too late, but she hadn’t particularly wanted to leave, not with the tense air in camp. When she’d risen in the morning and picked up her bow to go hunt something, Rivak had shaken his head at her.

“Don’t bother. We won’t need more than what’s left from last night.” Reheated goat was far from her favorite meal, but she hadn’t been inclined to argue this time. Rivak had been making tense patrols of the camp all day, stomping off without a word to walk the wide circle of the perimeter, ears cocked for the sound of anything, or anyone, approaching, then coming back. His walks never seemed to have any visible effect on his tense energy.

Shree and Kree were both fiddling halfheartedly with a partially carved… something or other. She wasn’t sure because one of them would pick it up, carve a few distracted strokes into it or maybe just turn it over and over in their hands, then put it down, and a few minutes later the other would do the same. They both seemed to have a different idea of what it was supposed to be, or possibly neither of them had any idea at all. Twice now they’d both answered when one of their names was called, and turned to each other with a distracted air.

“Aren’t you Kree today?”  


“No?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you want to?”

“Maybe?”

“Well whichever one.”

Broc was counting over his pouches of ground herbs with a worried air, several times already when she knew for a fact he knew exactly how many he had and how much of what was in them. He’d crinkle his eyes at her when he caught her watching, trying to be reassuring, but he kept idly tapping worry and anxiousness against whatever surface he happened to be resting his hands on.

Shrike couldn’t help but pick up on the mood, even if she was trying not to mirror it. Growing up in a house of seven, if one person picked up someone’s else’s tension then soon the whole house was wound tight as an overdrawn bowstring, one careless pluck away from snapping. The problem was that she’d normally have dealt with that kind of thing by going off by herself for a while, and that was the one thing she didn’t want to do now.

She’d occupied herself with arrowmaking instead, the simplest kind that were just a straight stick with fletching on one end and a carved point on the other. She only used them for target practice or hunting small game, but her hands knew every step of the process by sheer muscle memory, and the repetition was soothing. She’d filled out some of the gaps in her quiver when the insistent trilling of a cricket made her realize that dusk was just beginning to fall. The others looked up too, although she suspected it was more because she had than anything else.

“You should go now,” said Broc quietly. “You’ll want to be away- wherever you’re staying before it gets dark.” Before the moon rose.

“Yeah. I guess I should.” She’d already packed her bag (and then repacked it because she hadn’t distributed the weight right, and then unpacked it to get her fletching materials and then repacked it again) and now she wasn’t sure whether to regret her preparedness or be grateful. She’d never been one for extended goodbyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“You’ll come back?” Rivak asked, looking her in the eyes, a challenge from one warrior to another, or maybe something else.

“I’ll be back.” She held eye contact for another moment, to show her own strength, and broke it by bowing her head not by turning her eyes away. A gesture of respect from a band member to their leader.

“Good. Then get going, it’s already late.” He nodded towards where she knew the road lay, over the grassy hills, and she went.

* * *

She really had cut it close. By the time she got within sight of the stable, it truly was starting to get dark. Although there was a fire lit under cooking pot outside, it was dwindling, clearly not having been used or tended for at least an hour, and no one was outside. The wooden shutters over the window outside had been shut tightly, as had the doors which were usually left thrown open, rain or shine. She knocked, loud enough to be heard over the hubub of sound from inside. A shutter in the door was pulled back to look at her, and then the door was thrown open.

“Get inside, hurry!” The Hylian holding the door was wearing the uniform of a stablehand, and he gestured her in hurriedly. “It’s already dark out, thank the goddess you made it here in time! It’s a blood moon tonight, it’s dangerous to be out.” Even as he spoke, she thought she heard a distant roar, before he shuddered and shut the door against it. “Come in, come in. I’m sorry, all our beds are already spoken for, but there’s no charge for a space on the floor tonight. We’ve dinner if you like though, five rupees for a bowl of stew and all the bread you’d like. And you’ll like it for sure, Sheri’s a champion baker.”

“Sure.” She hadn’t had much of an appetite all day, and her stomach was starting to remind her of that fact. Besides, she clearly wasn’t going to be using the cooking pot outside, and the evening had gotten chilly enough that something hot sounded welcome. She accepted the bowl and the two generous slices of bread (the crust topped with a sprinkling of oats, she noticed in amusement) and sat down at the table to eat it. She kept her head down, focusing on the food so that no one would feel compelled to try to start a conversation with her, and listened to the talk going on around her instead.

“I swear, I really did see one!”

“You never did.”

“I did! This big green Zora popped out of the river where I was fishing and scared the daylights out of me, and asked if I was a Hylian.”

“What would a Zora be doing in the river? They haven’t left the domain in ages.”

“Looking for a Hylian, I guess. He said that was what he was doing, because their prince needed one. Anyway, he tried to get me to come up to the domain, but it’s just too far for me, especially with Tessa expecting and all. So I told him I couldn’t but I’d pass his message along, and then he said thank you and sorry for scaring all the fish away. Then he dove back into the water and came up with a fish in his teeth, and said it was for me, for my troubles. And it was a five pound bass so here I am, passing his message along like I said.”

“You’d have to be a fool to head all the way up to the Zora’s domain on a crazy story like that. I hear the passes are crawling with lizalfos and it never stops raining.”

She stopped listening at that point, as their conversation turned to the pair of them talking about how dangerous it was to travel these days, and someone ought to do something about it. She wondered vaguely what it might be like to meet a Zora, though. She’d thought they never left their domain these days.

The stew was good, mutton flavored with a hint of something spicy and complex, thick with rice and chunks of pumpkin. The bread, too, was just as good as promised, soft and chewy with a crisp crust, perfect for soaking up the last of the stew. It was probably going to be the only good thing about the night though. The stable was crowded with travelers seeking shelter, and loud. Someone she couldn’t see was playing music on some sort of stringed instrument, and everyone seemed to be having a conversation at the top of their lungs to be heard over the din. Shrike had never liked crowds, never liked noise. Yes, she’d had four brothers who had been a noisy crowd all by themselves, but they’d been _her_ crowd, and besides when they got to be too much she could leave. She was shut in with this crowd until morning, and was starting to regret it. The sound had a presence all by itself, pressing in on her from all sides until she felt like she was shrinking inside her skin to make room for it. It didn’t even sound like individual words anymore, just a dull roar. All the flickering torches looked too bright, and the people too close. Maybe she should have just pitched her tent nearby like she usually did when a stable or inn looked too crowded...

“You look thoughtful.”

Shrike had long since trained herself out of the habit of jumping when she was startled. One second’s careless movement could ruin an hour’s worth of stalking after all. She froze instead, which usually had the added bonus of looking intimidating to whoever had been rude enough to startle her. Her erstwhile startler, a Hylian with an easy grin and the dark complexion of someone native to Lurelin, didn’t have the grace to look even a little intimidated though.

“Or maybe you’re nervous? I can’t tell if that’s twitchy or contemplative.” He nodded towards her hand resting on the table which, unbeknownst to her, had been tapping unease against the wood. She stilled it immediately. “I haven’t seen you here before. What do you do?”

“I’m a hunter.” If her tone was a little cold, well, she wasn’t exactly in the mood to put effort into being sociable tonight, and exponentially less so if he was flirting. But reminding people that you killed things for a living had a remarkably dampening effect on any kindling ardor.

“A hunter!” His easy smile grew even wider. “Fate has brought us together tonight, hunter girl.”

“It’s Shrike.” Her tone was definitely cold now.

“Shrike then. And I am Mako,” he said, unperturbed by her tone. “So, Shrike who I was flirting with but I see now that that’s not an effective sales tactic. Let’s get down to business, you and I. You sell meat, and I,” he flashed a blinding grin at her, “sell the finest spices you’ll find outside of Lurelin. That’s my spice you taste in the stew, you know, although not enough of it. No one up here ever seems to add enough spice to anything.”

“I sell more pelts than meat, actually,” she said, but now more intrigued than irritated. Even if it had been underspiced as he claimed, she’d liked what she’d tasted in the stew. When you were cooking for yourself on a pan over a campfire, good seasoning was the difference between a good meal and something you only ate because you had to. She still teased Kent (well, she did whenever she saw her little brother these days anyway) about the time he’d cooked dinner and forgotten to add any salt.

“Well then, allow me to improve your sales in that regard. Picture it. You, cooking your latest catch, the hungry traveler following the scent for miles. ‘How hungry that divine aroma makes me!’ he proclaims. ‘Where can I buy such ambrosial sustenance?’ And say you ‘Right here, and behold! The seasoning that puts the final polish upon my excellent victuals, available for a modest additional sum’ and then all is over but to count your rupees.”

She didn’t picture herself doing much of what he pictured (in fact, most of her sales happened at inns and stables like this one, less out on the road) but the thought of expanding her own cooking stores was a tempting one. Maybe she could get something for the band too. They’d liked her cooking so far, since they didn’t have much to use for seasoning beyond rock salt, wild peppers, and wild onions.

“What have you got that’s spicy?” she asked. His grin widened.

“Shrike, we are going to do _such_ business,” he told her gleefully. “Allow me to show you my wares.”

She ended up splurging more than she’d meant to, on both a jar of dried warm safflina and one of cool safflina, the first with a warm savory scent and the other with a fresh, crisp scent, some swift violet tea whose sweet floral aroma she hadn’t been able to resist even before he’d sworn it would get you up and moving quickly in the morning, a jar of curry powder that he’d told her proudly was his family’s own secret blend, and of course a jar of the spicy-sweet Goron spice she’d enjoyed so much in the stew. Even after their round of spirited bargaining, the price was still nothing to sneeze at. He’d mournfully told her that she drove a hard bargain, but he was pleased enough with the final amount that once payment had changed hands, he added another packet to her pile.

“Hibiscus and berry tea,” he explained. “When you brew it, it will be as red as a sunset, and it’s a fine thing to let the day wind down. At home, we drink it with ice and watch the sun set over the ocean. The hibiscus flowers grow everywhere in the village, and when they toss in the wind, it’s said that the flower maidens are dancing for the sea.”

“You sound like you miss it,” she said, struck by the way his tone had gone softly wistful.

“Doesn’t everyone miss their home?” he asked. “At least I, lucky as I am, will go back when my pack is empty.”

“Yeah,” she said, almost as softly as he had. “I guess we do.”

* * *

The rest of the night passed less restfully than she would have liked. Even the floor was crowded, and although she managed to get a spot by one of the walls, the room still felt too warm, too loud with the sound of so many others breathing, snoring, and turning in their sleep. She slept fitfully, and the sound of a cucco crowing sunrise at last from the roof of the stable came as a relief. She quickly rerolled her bedroll and fastened it to her pack, which she hadn’t even opened save to put away her purchases. Picking her way across the floor covered in bedrolls and mostly sleeping bodies took some care, but she managed to get out the door without stepping on anybody. She waved cheerfully to the stablehand out tending to the horse, who gave her a startled wave back.

“Leaving so soon? You didn’t even get breakfast!”

“I like to get an early start,” she said cheerfully. “Thanks for the space for the night.”

“Well here, take this for the road,” she said, tossing Shrike an apple. “Come by again!” Shrike waved again, but she was already on her way back down the path.

She finished the apple quickly, and could have had another, but not even hunger could have convinced her to delay her start. She was more than ready to get out of the crowd, and get back to her band. It felt… good, to think of it like that. To be heading back to people who could be called hers.

The walk to the stable had seemed to drag, but the walk back felt quick. Or maybe she was simply moving that much quicker, in her eagerness to get back. It wasn’t long before she was within sight of the camp, enough to see the familiar figures seated around the fire. She raised a hand and waved, and the two blue bokoblins waved enthusiastically back.

However, her good mood at getting back to see them again drained away once she got close enough to get a good look at them. Shree and Kree were scraped and bruised, both liberally covered in Broc’s healing salve and a few bandages. Rivak looked even worse, like he’d been mauled by a wild animal. Broc, the only one who looked still in good shape, had clambered up halfway onto his shoulder where he was stitching a long, ugly tear in his ear with a bone needle.

“What the hell happened to you?” she demanded. The others paused at the alarm in her voice.

“The red moon happened,” said Broc, his tone quiet, but still focused on the careful stitches to delicate skin.

“Hylian on a horse,” said Kree, ears drooping and eyes on the ground, Shree a mirror image.

“The horse ran.”

“We chased it anyway.”

“It kicked me.”

“And we chased it anyway.”

“We didn’t hurt him.”

“Couldn’t catch him.”

“Still chased it anyway.”

“And you?” she asked, looking over at Rivak.

“Found another mob to fight,” he said, meeting her gaze directly. “That was most of the night, I think. Still had that when the moon set, so I brought it back.” He nodded towards the carcass of a wild boar, a massive beast with its tusks tipped in red. It looked like it had been savaged not with weapons, but with teeth and claws. Rivak’s gaze was still locked with hers, daring her not to look away, to understand what had happened last night in full, in all its ugly detail. To see the vicious wounds he’d inflicted on a wild animal known for its ferocity, the ones inflicted on him by another moblin, the danger he was capable of inflicting. To decide whether or not that was something she could live alongside.

She didn’t break his gaze.

“You look like hell,” she informed him. She took a step forward, placing herself within the circle they’d made around the fire, letting her hands rest briefly on Shree and Kree’s shoulders as she did. “Broc, is there anything I can do to help?” The air of tension, as they all waited to see whether something would be broken or strengthened, relaxed.

“No, I’m almost done,” said Broc, lifting his head long enough to crinkle his eyes at her. “Rivak takes the most patching up, but he’ll be fine.”

“Mobs are tough,” Rivak said dismissively, not quite managing to keep the warm affection out of his voice as he shoved gently at Broc. “This’ll be all healed up a week.”

“If you don’t scratch the stitches out again,” Broc said sternly.

“Well they _itch,_ ” Rivak grumbled.

“That’s our fearless leader,” said Shrike with a grin. “Shree, do you mind getting the cooking pot over the fire? Might as well make sure this doesn’t go to waste.” She headed over to the boar carcass to start cleaning and butchering it. After the twins got the heavy iron pot over the fire to begin heating, they joined her to help. The pair of them weren’t as skilled at it as she was, but they followed her directions about where to cut, and mostly took the pieces she cut and started chopping them into bite size pieces on her request. The two of them were eager to do something to help, and she didn’t mind some imprecision since she wasn’t being as careful about separating the cuts as she would have been if this was game she was planning to sell anyway. It had already been torn up a little, and besides this was all getting thrown into the pot regardless of whether it was tenderloin or shoulder. She focused on getting as much meat out of it as possible, and once it had all been chopped, tossed it in the pot to brown for a few minutes.

Rivak was watching her with mild interest, but not the sort of hunger that suggested he was going to be impatient if she tied up the cooking pot for hours like she was planning to. Good. There ought to be enough in there for all of them to eat as much as they wanted, even Rivak who easily ate three times as much as any single member of the band. She added some wild onions and a handful of peppers into the pot for flavor, letting them brown with the meat, then filled it up the rest of the way with water to stew it in. Some salt, and a generous helping of the Goron spice she’d purchased last night finished it off, and she put the lid back on to let it all cook slowly for a few hours.

“What’s that?” Rivak asked, as she put it back into her pack.

“An experiment, I guess. Hope everyone likes it, because that’s dinner tonight,” she said with a shrug.

“If Shrike keeps making good meals we’ll have to promote her to cook,” Kree said cheerfully.

“She’d be a good cook!”

“She’s already a good hunter.”

“Maybe she could be both.”

“Wait, being a cook is a promotion from hunter?” Shrike asked. This made the pair of them burst into barking laughter.

“Anything is a promotion for Shrike.”

“She’s the lowest band member!”

“Not that she isn’t fierce.”

“The fiercest!”

“But also the newest.”

“Not even a single status mark yet.”

“Huh.” She considered this for a moment. “So who’d I replace, Broc?” This sent them into fresh paroxysms of laughter.

“Broc!”

“You should be so lucky!”

“But I thought Broc was red and you were blue,” she said, confused.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Broc is a healer.”

“Broc is second.”

“You replaced us!”

“We shared it.”

“It’s nice to have a bigger band.”

“So we finally outrank someone.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that. You know I never claimed healer status,” Broc said, looking pained.

“You could, and you know it. I’d back it up,” said Rivak firmly. “You finished your training and you know as much as any healer. You deserve the status and you deserve to wear the healer marks.”

“I don’t. I never had a healer to give them to me,” said Broc insistently, voice raised with more feeling than she’d ever heard him use before. The little bokoblin was usually so even keeled, with a cheerful response to even Rivak’s most irritable growl, but now he was almost shouting, lips curled slightly up to bare his teeth and ears pinned back. “I can’t wear them, Rivak!”

“Alright, alright, easy” the moblin said, his voice a gentle rumble. Broc seemed to deflate, his ears going from tensely pinned back to a miserable droop, and his eyes following them down, as he angled his body slightly away from Rivak placatingly.

“I’m sorry, Rivak. I shouldn’t have shouted.” He glanced at Rivak apologetically out of the corner of his eyes. Broc had told her once that the posture for apology, the indirect glance, the slumped shoulder, the turning slightly away, all indicated unwillingness to fight, and that in some bands the party being apologized to would take a ritual swipe at them, or even knock the offender down as punishment, to take their place as victor, before they tendered their forgiveness. But Rivak never did that. He just reached out to lay a hand on Broc’s shoulder, thumping it gently, and that was the end of it.

“Broc’s still second though. I guess if you want to move up, you can challenge Shree and Kree to a hrreark,” he said, to an immediate burst of deliberately overwrought agitation.

“Hey!”

“No fair!”

“We didn’t even get time to enjoy it!”

“She has to beat us both at once!”

“Not even trying that. I barely get a word in edgewise as it is, if I try to outtalk you both I’ll probably end up losing status,” said Shrike.

“They’re right though, you’re definitely entitled to some hunter marks,” said Rivak, looking at her thoughtfully. “And our band mark. You’re a little pale for the white marking clay though. Broc, are there any other colors around?”

“I’ve only seen the white marking clay around here,” said Broc, shaking his head. “We could mix it with something though. Soot, or I have some pigments. Not a lot of ochre left, but plenty of woad, since it grows around here and it doesn’t show up much on the rest of you.”

“Rivak’s wearing the ochre, isn’t he?” asked Shrike, glancing at the white and yellow markings on Rivak’s shoulders. “What are you going to do when you run out?”

“Find something else I guess,” said Broc with a wistful smile. “It came from… far away. I don’t remember exactly where. It was too long ago.”

“I heard you can find ochre in the highlands, around the desert,” said Shrike. “It’s pretty far from here though.”

“Highlands… red cliffs? Maybe that was it,” said Broc absently, as he poured blue powder into a bowl, along with the white clay, and a lump of resin that he rolled between his hands a bit first to warm it, then began to blend it all together with the same stone pestle Shrike had ground so many herbs into powder with. He examined the mixture with a critical eye, poured a bit of something from a flask into it and resumed mixing. “Woad is easy, but everyone here except you and me is already blue. I just keep making it so I don’t forget how. Oh!” He looked up, ears flagged, as he suddenly tapped out quick, energetic excitement against the rim of the bowl. “If you’re getting your own markings, then we should show you how to do ours too!”

“Oh yes!”

“Of course!”

“Broc is right!

“Then you can join in!” Shree and Kree nodded enthusiastically, then immediately began scrubbing at the marks on their own faces. Although Shrike had thought clay seemed likely to crumble and flake off easily, they had to work to get it off, even with water.

“It was just a few hours since we put it on, and now we have to get it all off again?” Rivak grumbled, but he too hadn’t hesitated to begin scrubbing his marks off.

“We’ll show you how to put on the status marks and the band mark. Then everyone will be able to see you’re a band member,” Broc said cheerfully. He’d prepared more of the plain white clay mixture too in another bowl, this in a larger quantity.

“So how does this work, exactly?” Shrike asked.

“Status marks go on your face. They tell everyone what your role in the band is. Band marks go on your shoulders. They tell everyone which band you belong to. The rest describe accomplishments or tell something about you or sometimes just decoration, but those two are the most important. Here, let’s start with Rivak!”

“If you have to,” Rivak said, but he leaned down nonetheless. Broc picked up the bowl of white clay and gestured for Shrike to come close so she could see, as he dipped his fingers into it.

“Rivak is a warrior, so we’ll give him his warrior marks first.” Rivak closed his eyes as Broc painted one long horizontal line down his face, starting at the back of his head, across his eye, and ending midway down his snout, and then a shorter slanted one down it from the bottom of his jaw up almost to his horn, forming an X-like shape. “The longer the lines, the more skilled a warrior they are. Rivak is a very good warrior.”

“And don’t forget it,” Rivak muttered.

“Now you try. Come around to the other side, and give him the warrior mark over this eye,” said Broc. She did as he said, standing in front of the unpainted side of Rivak’s face as he leaned down to put himself easily in reach. Despite his grumbling earlier, he was still sitting with his eyes closed patiently. She dipped her fingers into the white clay, rubbing it between her fingertips for a moment. It felt cool and smooth, a little more liquid than plain clay, yet just as thick. It felt a little nostalgic, the scent of the wet clay and the feel of it on her fingers reminding her of time spent playing in her mother’s workshop, shaping what she fondly imagined were cups and trees and animals out of a lump of clay while her mother’s wheel hummed comfortingly alongside. But this was smoother and silkier than the red clay her mother had worked with, the earthy scent joined by sharp and resinous notes from what he’d added to it.

She drew her fingers down Rivak’s face, not quite tentative, but not confident either. This felt… intimate, trusting. She was struck with the vague worry that she might poke him in the eye or yank on his ear, as if her hands might do something stupid all on their own. She focused on trying to keep them steady, to paint clean, straight lines. It took her a little bit to get used to it, to figure out how much of the clay she needed, how to keep the lines smooth. Broc had managed it in a few confident strokes, but she kept having to go back, to smooth something over or wipe away excess clay. When she finished, her lines weren’t quite as straight, weren’t quite as clean, as Broc’s were, but they were still recognizably the same, and he crinkled his eyes at her encouragingly.

“One last thing. This mark shows that he’s the band leader.” Broc drew a curved line under his horn, with a dot nestled behind the curve. It could have represented anything; the sun and the moon, an eye and a claw, even a stone resting on the ground. But to Shrike’s eye, the larger curved line looked as though it was protecting the smaller dot nestled behind it, standing between it and everything else.

“Are we done?” Rivak asked, opening his eyes. “How does it look?”

“It looks good!”

“Us next!” Shree and Kree came forward gleefully, waiting for their turn. Broc showed her how to do the crafter markings next, two curved lines under the eyes and one across the snout. He demonstrated on Shree, and then let her try on Kree, who was much delighted by this, while Shree openly sulked.

“Why don’t I get to help teach Shrike?”

“Because I’m Shrike’s favorite.”

“Then I’ll be Kree tomorrow and I’ll be the favorite.”

“You’re both my favorite, here.” Shrike reached out to dab a smudge of clay onto Shree’s ear. “Now you both have some.”

“Shrike gave me an extra status mark, now I outrank you!”

“No you don’t!”

“I’m third in the band now!”

“Not if I get one too!”

“Here’s one for you!” Shree gleefully tackled Kree with a handful of clay, smearing it onto their cheek while Kree shrieked and flailed and somehow managed to get just as much of the excess clay on Shree. Rivak just groaned and let them roll around for another minute before grabbing them both by the scruff of the neck and picking them up bodily.

“Do I need to smack you two together a few times until you stop fighting?” he asked, glaring sternly. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the amused look in his eye, and the way his muzzle twitched like he was suppressing a laugh.

“No, Rivak,” they chorused, both looking utterly unrepentant.

“I should demote you both and let Shrike be third,” he growled.

“No, Rivak!”

“A hrreark!”

“Well challenge her!”

“We’ll challenge you!”

“We’ll be the band leaders!”

“No you won’t or I’ll dump you both in the creek.” Rivak set them down. “Now settle, it’s Shrike’s turn.” Shockingly enough, the pair of them did, setting to wiping off the excess clay they’d smeared on each other.

“So, my turn now?” Shrike asked, turning to expectantly to Broc who was holding the bowl of blue woad stained clay.

“It is. Rivak’s the band leader, so he’ll give you your first marks,” sad Broc, passing the bowl to the moblin. It looked much smaller in his hand than it had been in Broc’s, and Shrike wondered how he was going to do it, as she went over to stand in front of him.

“Hmm. Your face isn’t shaped the right way to do it exactly the same,” Rivak said, leaning in. He twitched his nose to brush against Shrike’s much shorter one. “You don’t have anything like a proper snout. Maybe we should tug on it every morning until it gets longer,” he added, his ears twitching at an amused angle. Or at least his uninjured one did, while the one that Broc had stitched up moved much less. It made his reactions look oddly muted, to see him expressing only half his emotion.

“You try that, see how well it goes for you,” Shrike said dryly.

“Hmm.” He tipped her chin up as he examined her face thoughtfully. “Alright, hold still and close your eyes.” She felt him paint it across her face with swift, sure strokes as though this was something he’d done hundreds of times before. One swipe in a horizontal line across her eye, similar to the first one she’d drawn on his face, but shorter. One vertical line down the bridge of her nose, with surprising delicacy as though he’d used the blunt side of a claw for more precision. One more horizontal line across her cheek under her eye. Then he repeated the process on the other side of her face. “Keep your eyes closed for a minute, let it dry,” he told her.

“I don’t know if I can do this myself, if I have to keep my eyes closed. The lines are going to go everywhere,” she said thoughtfully.

“You won’t have to. We do this for each other every morning,” Rivak replied. “The band helps each other out. Now you’re stuck doing it too, so I hope you remember how to do mine. Open your eyes now.”

“I guess I’ll figure it out.” She didn’t feel the painted clay on her skin as much as she’d expected to when she opened her eyes, just a faint layer of something cool and a little heavier. Broc had clearly perfected the formula he used. And yet, it seemed as though she was much more aware of it than she should be, as though she could still feel Rivak carefully brushing the shape of the marks onto her skin that made her one of them. “And… the band mark too, right?”

“The band mark,” said Rivak with a nod. “That goes on your shoulders.” She was already wearing a sleeveless tunic, so there was nothing to roll up or remove. Rivak paused before he made any mark though. “We’re Firethorn band. You know it?” he asked.

“The big thickets with the red berries, right?” She knew the plant he was talking about. A lot of Hylians considered it a nuisance, and tore it up if it sprouted in their villages. It sprawled tall and wide where it was allowed to take root, sent out runners until a single plant became a dense thicket, grew long thorns that made trying to get through it a difficult and painful experience, and the tempting red berries it grew were mildly poisonous, and would probably have caused a lot of upset stomachs if they weren’t also bland and unpalatable.

But the thorny sprawl was perfect shelter for birds and small animals, the berries persisted long into the winter for them to eat. And in the spring, it covered itself in a snowfall of white flowers regardless of whether it was growing neatly pruned in a garden or wild out in the woods. It didn’t care if the Hylians didn’t have a use for it. It wasn’t growing for them.

“I know that one,” she said thoughtfully. Rivak seemed to catch her understanding from her tone, because he gave a satisfied nod, and dipped his fingers into the clay. She watched as he drew the markings onto her upper arm, just below the shoulder, first on her left and then her right. Two rings all the way around her arm. One sharp thorn shape in the center of the bottom ring, pointing left. One sharp thorn shape in the center of the top ring, pointing right. The sharp tips were facing outwards no matter which direction you approached from. Something you’d have to be careful handling. Something you’d only grasp if you were certain that the reward was worth the sting of it.

“There.” Rivak looked it over, letting his hand rest on her shoulder for a moment as though he was simply checking over his work. “Now everyone can see you’re one of us.” He bared his teeth in a wry grin, half warrior’s challenge, only mitigated by the way he’d slitted his eyes almost shut. “Good luck getting out of it now.”

“I’m not planning to.” She’d meant her tone to be just as teasing back, but it came out… more serious than she’d meant it to. A piece of her heart that slipped out of her mouth before she’d realized she needed to guard against it.

“We’re glad.” Broc put a hand on her shoulder, as gentle as his tone. “Do you want to see your marks?”

“I- yeah, I do,” she said, grateful for the distraction. Broc had rinsed out the empty bowl that had held the white marking clay, and left it full of clean water so she could lean over it, and look at her reflection in the still surface. She was surprised by how different she looked. She still had the same hazel eyes, the same short, dark brown hair, the same high cheekbones and aquiline nose that tended to get her described as handsome rather than pretty. And yet, the dark blue markings seemed to subtly change it all, leaving it the same and yet making her look like a different person. The lines running down her face, thickest over her eyes, thinner underneath them, and thinnest yet down the bridge of her nose, were similar to the ones Rivak wore. They wouldn’t have looked out of place on another moblin. And yet somehow, they didn’t look out of place on her either. In fact, looking at them, she felt almost as though something had been added that she hadn’t realized was missing.

Shree and Kree leaned in to look, and nodded admiringly.

“Shrike has long hunter marks for a new band member!”

“Shrike is a very skilled hunter.”

“We might be in trouble.”

“She won’t stay last for long.”

“Heh, don’t worry.” Shrike reached up to run her fingers over the marks, watching as her reflection did the same. “I’ll let you two enjoy your status. For now,” she added with a grin. Her reflection grinned back. She decided that she liked the look of it.

Broc showed her a few more of the nonessential markings, the ones the rest of the band might or might not wear depending on how they felt that morning. Shree and Kree had never added the auxiliary markings that distinguished weapons crafter and lirit crafter, at least not that she could remember. Rivak mostly only bothered with the extra marks that proclaimed his battle prowess, highlighting scars or indicating particularly impressive fights, if they might be interacting with another band. Broc himself wore no marks except for the band mark, but she knew well enough not to ask him about it.

By the time they were done, it was noon, and their appetites had been well honed by the scent of the boar that had been stewing all this time, rich and savory, interwoven with complex notes of spice. Shrike was no longer worried that her experiment was going to result in something inedible, but it was still immensely gratifying to pull the lid off the cooking pot and watch their expressions as the scent filled the air. The pork had cooked slowly until it was meltingly tender, simmering in the thick red sauce that smelled tantalizingly spicy-sweet. Shrike dished it out to each of them, Rivak first, even though he waited until everyone else had their bowl before digging into it.

Shrike was more than pleased by the way this had turned out. The spice she’d liked so much in last night’s stew went just as well with the pork, and the flavor had infused every bite while it simmered for hours. And just as Mako had said, more was better, taking the flavor from last night’s delicate hints of spice to a complex melange, with just the right amount of heat. Next time, she thought she might cook some rice to go with it; the sauce would probably be good over it… She glanced up and noticed that Rivak had paused, and was no longer eating.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Shrike is third now,” Rivak said decisively, looking down at the bowl he was holding as though it was full of gold.

“Shrike can be second,” Broc suggested hopefully.

“Shrike is first,” declared Kree.

“We’ve decided."

“She wins the hrreark.”

“All the hrrearks.”

“We have to be thornbird band now.”

“Let’s hold off on shuffling the status until after dinner,” Shrike suggested. “Maybe tomorrow morning we can discuss giving me some longer hunter marks if you think I’m that great,” she added, grinning at Rivak, who snorted and didn’t bother looking up from his bowl. “We might have to do it a little late though. I’ve got an errand to run tomorrow morning.”

* * *

Mako seemed surprised to find her back at the stable. She’d arrived just in time it seemed, since he was doing up the straps on his bag, belongings packed neatly away and his bedroll ready to be placed atop the pack.

“I didn’t expect to see you back so soon. Perhaps something here drew you back that you couldn’t leave behind?” he asked with a wink.

“Yeah, actually. How many more jars of that Goron spice do you have?” she asked.

“But three. It seems you weren’t the only one who enjoyed last night’s stew. Shall I wrap up another for you?”

“I’ll take them all,” she said decisively.

“All! Well, I never argue when someone is so kind as to lighten my pack,” he said, dipping in and quickly producing the three jars. “Might I ask as to the occasion?”

“I had… some customers who really liked it,” she said with a grin. “It got a really good reaction. I think I’m going to need a lot of it in the future.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that cooking with Goron spice usually produces curry, but in my mind, curry powder is yellow, and Goron spice is clearly red. So I’ve once again assumed that this is another game mechanic, and the Goron spice represents all the other spices in Hyrule too, like how you can cook a seafood paella with fish and snails but the illustrations show shrimp and mussels in it. I guess there’s also some more plot maybe, but most importantly the spices. 
> 
> Rivak’s markings look pretty similar to what the moblins are wearing in game. Fighters, hunters, and generally weapony types get markings with straight lines and sharp angles. Crafters and less fighty types get curved lines. Also please never ask me to design anything else ever again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shrike and Shree talk about the use of dragonbone. Shrike and Rivak talk about other things.

“Is that Rivak’s spear?” Shrike was aware as soon as the words left her mouth of what a pointless question it was. The weapon was longer than Shree, who looked dwarfed just by holding it, of course it was Rivak’s. But Shree nodded anyway. They were uncharacteristically alone today, Kree having declared that they needed more wood for… something they were very excited about, and wandered off into the forest to collect it, so it was just her, Shree, and the spear right now.

“Rivak cracked it.” They paused habitually, as though waiting for Kree to add something, and then finished the statement alone. “During the last red moon. He didn’t break it but it’s close to breaking. It needs fixing.” Shrike leaned in to take a look at the spot Shree was indicating. The spearhead itself was a large white piece of dragonbone, wickedly sharp, and surrounded by a bristling circle of four smaller shards. Even a glancing blow with it would likely still leave damage. But one of the shards was indeed cracked, split down the middle. She knew dragonbone was tough, but she suspected that another few blows, particularly with Rivak’s strength behind them, would soon shatter it.

Shree had carved away as much of the resin holding it in place as possible, heated what remained to soften it, and was now carefully working the shard loose from the wood with a piece of leather wrapped around it to keep the sharp blade away from skin. Shrike watched them examine it closely, holding it up to their eyes, then to the light, then back in front of their face, turning it this way and that.

“Dragonbone breaks along its own lines,” they explained, as she tapped out a soft inquisitive pattern against the handle of her own knife where it hung at her waist. “You can’t decide for it. It’s more like obsidian than other bone. You have to let it decide what shape it’s going to be. I think this one will let itself be two pieces.”

“Why not just use obsidian then, if it’s so difficult to predict?” Shrike asked. She still had the obsidian knife Shree had made her, kept in a sheath at her belt, and rarely went anywhere without it. She found herself reaching for it as often as she did her older steel blade, nowadays.

“Dragonbone is lighter and harder than obsidian. It shatters maybe, but it doesn’t chip. And obsidian loses its edge, dragonbone doesn’t.” Shree was tapping at the dragonbone with their claws as they spoke. Not in a pattern that meant anything, just a halting, inquisitive tapping, listening to the sound it made. They nodded to themself and decisively reached for the stone awl sitting next to them, raised it up, and brought it down hard on the piece of dragonbone. It split into two neat pieces without so much as a crack. “And there it is!” Shree crinkled their eyes at her gleefully, clearly enjoying her surprise. “All done.”

“Somehow, I get the feeling that was a lot more complicated than you just made it look,” she said.

“It’s listening to the dragonbone,” Shree said with a shrug. “Don’t touch!” they added with more alarm, as Shrike reached down curiously to pick up one of the pieces. The warning came too late, as the edge she could have sworn she’d barely touched sliced her finger open.

“Shit!” She pulled her hand back, resisting the urge to stick her stinging finger in her mouth.

“How bad is it?”

“I’m alright, I’ve cut myself worse cooking. It just surprised me.” She glanced down at the blood welling up from her finger. “It’s really always that sharp?”

“This is a good piece. Rivak picked it well. But when it’s sharp, it’s _sharp._ You shouldn’t touch the edge with bare skin,” said Shree, wrapping the piece of leather around it to illustrate.

“Could you make arrowheads out of that?” she asked eagerly. The possibility of having such a razor sharp point made out of such light material was tempting. It was easily as sharp as metal, and weighed half as much. She’d have to be extra careful of them of course, the same way she was with any of her best arrows, but if she only used them when she knew she had a sure shot she could probably cut down on losses...

“Maybe. I have a pouch of dragonbone shards too small for making weapons. I can see if any of them would make good arrowheads,” said Shree. “We’ve never had an archer in the band, so I never tried it. But you don’t throw dragonbone away.”

“Lets give it a try then.”

“Are you trying to keep my weapon from getting fixed by being distracting? That’s not going to help you if your plan is to challenge me again.”

“I don’t need to, I’d just get my bow and stand out of your range before I challenged you.” Shrike grinned up at Rivak as he wandered over. “Besides, who’d want to win when it just means now I’m the one in charge of keeping these guys in line?”

“Hey!” Shree flailed idly at her with a free hand, eyes still on the spear instead of her.

“You can’t rely on your bow forever,” Rivak said.

“Can and will.”

“No, and we’re fixing that. Shree, do we have any boko spears you haven’t put a point on yet?”

“In the back of the cave,” said Shree, waving back towards the dome shaped structure.

“Good. We’re taking one.”

“We’re what now?” Shrike asked, as Rivak headed over and sorted through them until he found one that, for whatever reason, he decided he wanted. They all looked the same to her.

“You’re supposed to be one of our warriors, you’re learning spearwork. You’re too small to be good with a club, you need to be able to put more weight behind it.”

“My weight is _fine_ , I could use a club if I wanted to.”

“You like to have more distance between you and an opponent anyway. A spear’s good for that.” Rivak completely ignored her protest and tossed her the spear, more of a staff since Shree hadn’t even done any rudimentary sharpening of the end, and she caught it by reflex. “Come on.”

“You still don’t have your spear,” she said, hurrying to catch up with his longer stride.

“Don’t need it. You won’t be able to hurt me.”

“Oh we’ll see about that,” she said grimly, as she drew even with him.

* * *

An hour later, Shrike was starting to regret her words. She was breathing hard, covered in a thin layer of dirt from being sent tumbling across the ground, and sore all over. She had calluses on her hands from handling a bow, but holding a spear rubbed on different spots, needed different calluses. She knew she had sufficient muscle, if wiry, to string and draw a bow heavy enough to take down big game, but apparently that was different muscle than handling a spear too. She was going to be sore after this, and she hadn’t managed to land a single significant hit on Rivak.

Rivak, it turned out, was just as keen about hands-on learning as she was. He’d show her a move going through every part of it, how to hold the spear, how to put her feet, how much weight to put into it, and how to complete the follow-through. He’d started with only a few basic one, close thrust, long thrust, high and low blocks, ankle sweep, charge, and then once he was confident that she’d gotten it, he’d make her practice it. Against him. She got the sense that he was pulling his blows heavily, but even a pulled blow from a barehanded moblin tended to be enough to send her tumbling across the ground. She wasn’t sure if his habit of telling her exactly what she’d done wrong whenever he landed another hit was helpful or infuriating.

“Too close. You have reach, use it instead of getting into mine,” was the latest accompaniment to a blow that sent her skidding across the ground. At least she still had her grip on the staff. That had been another one of the first lessons, keeping her grip on her weapon when she fell, and how to hold it so she didn’t hurt herself on it when she went rolling. She jumped up, but Rivak wasn’t standing at ready this time. He was still right where he’d been, and his stance was relaxed instead of poised to strike.

“That was good. We’re done for today, let’s go rinse off.”

“I can go again,” she said stubbornly.

“We’re done,” Rivak told her, in a tone that didn’t allow for argument. He headed towards the stream that ran through the woods, and she followed.

The cool water did feel good after her exertions, as she washed dirt and sweat off her skin. She was going to need an actual bath soon, and she thought wistfully of the stables, where a few rupees could get you the temporary hire of a copper tub full of hot water. Just because she had bathed in plenty of rivers and lakes during her travels didn’t mean she particularly enjoyed it. Still, at least it was warm now. When the weather got colder, she’d be more willing to brave the crowds at the stables for a hot bath, but for now there were worse things than cool water on a warm day, with frogs singing on the opposite bank.

“You did well for a beginner. Really,” Rivak added at her skeptical look as they headed back. “No one lands a good hit on their first day. Some people are hopeless from the beginning, they’re just not made for fighting or they won’t be good with that weapon no matter what, but you’ve got potential. You just need practice to get good. You’re too used to standing still, you need to learn to move around more.”

“I know, I know. But at least I could hit the target when I first learned to shoot a bow,” she grumbled. “I don’t like being bad at things.”

“You’re not bad, you’re just starting out.”

“And now you’re going to tell me were just as bad when you started,” she said dryly. Rivak moved like a warrior even when he wasn’t holding a weapon, balanced and dangerous, and she couldn’t imagine him ever having been as clumsy with a spear as she was. It took her by surprise when he tossed back his head and laughed.

“Just as bad? I was worse. Started learning to fight as soon as I could hold a club. My teacher was an old silver boko, three times my age and a head shorter than me, shield and club fighter. He just used the shield to start me out and he still beat me black and blue. No special treatment there. The band had plenty of warriors, so I was nothing special just because I wanted to be one.”

“So you were in another band before this one?” she asked curiously.

“My dam and sire’s band. That was a long time ago though, back when you still saw cubs around. I was out of it roaming before the first red moon rose. Wanted to make a name for myself in another band.”

“Before the first red moon?” she asked, wondering if she’d heard him right. “That would have been a hundred years ago.”

“A long time ago,” he repeated. “Could have been. I lost a lot of time at first, dying. Being stupid. Thought I was the bravest warrior in the world, if nothing could touch me that the red moon didn’t bring me back from. You lose time, dying, and you lose memories. Things get foggy.” He paused, glancing back over his shoulder where Shrike had stumbled to a stop and was now struggling not to look as horrified as she felt. “I don’t do that anymore,” he said, apparently catching her expression anyway but misinterpreting the cause. “I wouldn’t leave the band alone on purpose. We already lost enough members. After I saw what happened to the ones who came back wrong, I got a lot more careful.”

“What- you _died_ \- how many times- came back wrong?” Her words stumbled all over each other as she was unable to figure out what she wanted to ask first. She let the confusion well up instead of the mounting horror, as though refusing to think about the implications of what he’d said could keep it from being true.

“Yes. Lost count, not more than a handful of times in the last dozen years. And the stals. You’ve seen them?” he asked.

“Those were people?” The horror was mounting anyway, even when she tried to only think about it piece by piece. This single piece was bad enough. She’d seen the skeletal monstrosities, that dug their way out of the ground at night and pursued anything that moved with a mindless hunger, that kept moving even if you knocked them to pieces. They weren’t very fast or smart, and they didn’t seem to like light, but she’d still had a few close calls, traveling at night. Trying to get up a tree in the dark, and waiting until they forgot you were there was always a harrowing experience. The thought that they weren’t just monsters created out of dark magic and the malice of the calamity, that they’d been people once, like Rivak, like Broc...

“Yeah. The red moon didn’t bring them back right, when they died. Only had to see it happen once before I realized I didn’t want to end up that way.” Rivak was keeping his good ear at a nonchalant angle, but she could tell by the tension that he was doing it deliberately, keeping a calm facade. His fingers twitched a little, against his side, as though moving with some silent emotion he wasn’t allowing to be heard.

“It won’t happen,” said firmly, glancing up to look him in the eye. “I’ll keep at this, and then we’ll have two warriors in the band instead of just one, right? Nothing’s a match for both of us.”

“Get better with the spear before you go charging into fights. _You_ wont come back with the red moon,” he said gruffly, but some of the tension in his shoulders eased nonetheless.

“...Can you tell me what happened?” she asked, a moment later after she’d dropped her gaze respectfully and they’d walked along in silence. “You said you lost other band members. Shree and Kree mentioned someone named ‘Tirk’ and then didn’t want to talk about them.”

“I can. But don’t… don’t ask Broc about this, alright? It’s especially hard for him.”

“I won’t,” she promised. Rivak sat down on a nearby rock, and she did the same, while he considered it for a moment.

“I said I left my old band before everything, right? That’s how you used to do it. Bands moved around a lot more, and if they got too big or you wanted to try for better status, you’d split off, go find a smaller band or maybe start your own. I’d been on my own for… a while, I don’t remember how long, when it started. More red moons than I bothered to count, thinking I must be some warrior. Things weren’t good then. A lot of bands, they saw that the Calamity gave them power and all they wanted was to use it, didn’t care against who. They’d fight anyone who wasn’t one of theirs. Lots of them just got hostile to outsiders too, didn’t know who to trust, who to blame for what happened. Got in a lot of fights, didn’t always walk away from them.”

“Rivak...”

“I know. I don’t do it anymore. But after a while, I ran into Firethorn band. Shree and Kree were already members. They’d just got their crafter marks, finished apprenticing under Tirk. The band leader was Ferrif, big red mob. She wore hunter marks, but she was a warrior too. She always said she’d rather claim the skills that fed the band. And there… there were...” he growled and shook his head. “I don’t remember the others. They were good to me, and I don’t even remember their damn names.”

“Easy,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault if the memory’s gone.”

“It probably is. If I’d been more careful, maybe I’d have more of it. I remember Ferrif though. Red, not a warrior, I thought she’d be an easy mark. Tried to fight her and she knocked me on my ass, then offered me a hand back up. Asked me to join her band. I didn’t want to, too damn stubborn and too damn stupid, but I hung around anyway. Couldn’t figure out why her band got on with no warriors in it, couldn’t figure out how they held together when other bands were falling apart or tearing each other apart every time the red moon rose. She taught me a lot about that. It was because of her. Well, not just her, it was the whole band. They had each other’s backs, looked out for each other.”

“They still do now,” Shrike said quietly. She’d wondered, why Broc was so quick to reach out, why the others had accepted her so soon. Now she was starting to get an idea.

“Yeah.” His eyes went soft, as though looking off into the distance of a fond, if unclear, memory. “Took me too long to figure that out. She taught me more about fighting than I ever learned in my old band, taught me how a band should be. How a leader should be. I was so proud of it, the day I joined, and first got the band marks.”

“I know how that felt.”

“Yeah...” He looked off into the distance for a moment, thoughtful. “And Ferrif had this friend who’d come by now and again, a wandering healer and his apprentice.”

“Broc?” She was almost afraid to hear the rest of the story, knowing that she probably wasn’t going to like the ending.

“Broc. I gave him so much trouble when we first met, I don’t know why he tolerated me. I just saw this runty little red boko with a twisted leg, and I resented that he was always the one patching me up. Still thought I was this big, great warrior, you know, shouldn’t need any help from someone like him.” He huffed a sigh. “He was always that patient, don’t know how he does it. But they stayed with us for a while, and that was when everything went to shit.”

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

“Some red moons are stronger than others, you know? Sometimes the voice just whispers, sometimes it yells. Sometimes you remember them, sometimes you don’t. There was a bad one.” He paused for so long she almost thought that was it, that this was as far along the story as he was willing to go. She could figure out how the rest went from there. She regretted pushing with her question, wondering if she was asking for things he didn’t want to speak about. She was about to speak up, to suggest they go back, when he started speaking again.

“When it was over, we were half the band down. Shree and Kree’s teacher was gone… and Broc’s too. Ferrif went out to look for them, but I think she knew she wasn’t coming back. She made me band leader, for the ones she left behind. Shree, Kree… and the runty healer’s apprentice I never liked.”

“Is that why Broc doesn’t want to-” She let the question hang, not willing to push again. Rivak nodded.

“It was hardest for him, I think. We might as well have been strangers. He didn’t talk, for a long time after, or maybe he couldn’t. Shree and Kree had each other, but he wasn’t a band member then. He’d lost his mentor, never even got his marks from him, didn’t have anyone but the warrior who used to push him around supposed to be in charge now. I’m surprised he ever started talking again.”

It hurt, to think of her friend, almost another little brother, lost like that. Having lost everything like that. He was always so cheerful, the most even tempered member of the band, and she couldn’t imagine how he could have come back from such a loss. If she’d lost her family like that, knowing they were dead or worse but without even the cold comfort of knowing for sure what had happened, she didn’t think she’d have borne it as well. She didn’t think she’d have borne it at all.

“You’re… not like that with him now,” she said carefully. Rivak snorted.

“No. I had to get over myself damn fast if I didn’t want him to wander off and see him come back wrong too. I had to have everyone’s back, especially his. Every band member matters. But… it was still hard for him. He kept waiting, we all did, but they never came back. So it’s just the four of us now.”

“The… the five. It’s the five of us now, right?” Shrike asked.

“Yeah.” He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his side in a rough hug. “It’s the five of us now.”

They sat together like that for a while, sharing the silence, and then headed back to camp, where the others were waiting to make the five of them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The apocalypse didn't just happen to Hylians, you know. It probably fucks your culture up pretty bad when an ancient evil hijacks your entire species as shock troops.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The band receives an unexpected visitor, and some unexpected news.

It had been a relatively uneventful morning, right up until a divine beast climbed onto the mountain, let out a sound halfway between animal cry and mechanical roar, and shot a beam of red light straight towards Hyrule castle.

Everything else had been going along as usual up until then. Broc and Shrike were usually the first up, and they’d mixed the marking clay, Broc the white and the ochre, and Shrike the blue that she wore. Shree and Kree were usually the last two up, and had to be woken with much groaning and reluctance. Rivak tended to be another early riser, sometimes beating Shrike or Broc to it, sometimes waking after them. The band had helped each other put on their markings, and then Kree had reminded Shrike of her promise to teach them a new recipe.

Shrike had been showing Kree how to make scrambled eggs using duck eggs, a generous helping of goat’s butter, and a handful of shredded hyrule herb for flavor, and thinking about nothing more important than whether or not she dared try making an omelet over the open flame next, and whether she could get some cheese that wasn’t goat cheese to go in it. She had not been expecting to have her morning interrupted by sacred relics of the past.

When they heard the divine beast cry, they all looked up just in time to see the light pierce through the sky and settle on the castle. All of them just stared at it, until well past the point where Shrike remembered that the eggs should be scorching right now, since they’d spent the entire time sitting right over the heat with no one stirring them. She glanced down, but Kree must have moved them off the fire, because the pan was now sitting on a large rock. (Kree was excitable but they took their food very seriously.)

“So, what does that mean?” she asked, finally, when it became apparent that no one else was going to speak up first.

“Don’t you know? Your people made it, not mine,” Rivak said with a shrug.

“The ancient Sheikah made the divine beasts, technically,” she said. “I guess we were using them, but I heard they got taken out of commission about a hundred years ago, when the calamity struck. The divine beasts were attacked, the champions were killed, and the beasts locked themselves up so no one could get inside. They say the calamity’s been trying to take control of them ever since. I guess I thought maybe you’d know if it finally succeeded? Since whatever that is,” she gestured at the beam of light, “is pointing right towards the castle. Sending it power or something?”

“Well, if we’re supposed to know about it, I don’t,” said Rivak with a shrug. “If the calamity got more powerful, I don’t know about that either. The last red moon was pretty quiet.”

Shrike was well aware of that. She’d spent another night at the stable, and had enjoyed it even less than last time since Mako wasn’t there to cheerfully try to convince her to buy more spices, but the lute player from last time _was_ back and had apparently bought a friend. However, she’d been cheered up immensely to get back and find her band all intact, and that the worst they’d done that night was chase a deer through the woods together and eat it raw.

“Huh. Well, if neither of us knows, I guess we’ll just have to wait until we find out. Anyway, breakfast is getting cold.” She put the pan back on the fire and put her attention back to stirring it, keeping a careful eye on the eggs to try to prevent them from getting rubbery and overcooked. “If I hadn’t gotten distracted, I would have taken it off the fire for the last couple minutes and let the heat of the pan finish cooking them, that’s how you keep them soft and tender. These are probably going to end up overcooked, but they’re still a lot better hot than cold,” she added to Kree, who was watching her carefully.

“Maybe we can try again next later?” they asked hopefully.

“Sure, if you like these enough to want them again. Maybe we should do an omelet next time actually, you don’t have to keep an eye on them every second they’re in the pan, and they’ve got more interesting fillings.”

The eggs ended up being a little overcooked as she’d predicted, but they got eaten fast enough anyway. She’d never actually made them with duck eggs before, and was interested in how the flavor differed. A little richer, and a littler gamier than when made with cucco eggs, it got her thinking about what might go well with the flavor. Cured ham was the obvious omelet filling, and she thought the smoky, salty tang would complement it well, especially paired with a nice sharp cheddar, and would truffles be too much richness? Was it silly to waste truffles on an omelet at all? Maybe just a drizzle of the oil. If she could get some of the sweet, mild peppers they grew in Kakariko Village, that could cut the richness nicely, keep it from being overwhelming. Or should she sub truffle for Hylian shrooms? She was torn as to whether the earthy flavor would be too much on top of the faint gaminess of the eggs, but maybe if she browned them in butter first to bring out a little sweetness...

And then she got the second surprise of the morning as someone appeared in the midst of their camp in a puff of smoke. Shrike froze in startlement, as a featureless, corpse-pale face with one massive red eye turned directly towards her.

“ _Ha ha ha! I see you’ve captured one of those pesky Hylian travelers! Well done_!”

His voice was faintly muffled. He was wearing a mask, she realized, as she actually looked at it without the jolt of adrenaline and dissipating smoke obscuring her vision. A white mask bearing the red eye symbol of the Sheikah, but inverted. Just a mask, not some nightmarishly malformed face. Her heart could stop pounding like a drum any damn time now.

“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” she demanded, more sharply than she’d meant to, but she _hated_ being startled and scared, and fear turned into anger at whoever was causing it very quickly for her.

“ _What_?” She couldn’t see his expression because of the damn mask, but he sounded baffled. Well good, served him right.

“He’s Yiga clan. Probably one of the footsoldiers,” Rivak said in a low rumble. He didn’t sound openly hostile, but he didn’t sound pleased either. “Don’t know what he’s doing all the way out here.”

“ _Lord_ _Ganon will surely be pleased with your initiative. You may hand her over to me now,”_ he said, ignoring what they were saying. He waited a moment, and then crossed his arms. She got the feeling he’d be frowning behind his mask if they could see it. “ _Well? Come on then_.” Nobody moved.

“Is he serious about this, or is this some kind of Yiga humor?” Shrike asked. Rivak shrugged. The Yiga continued to look put out at the lack of obedience to his demands.

“ _What are you all sitting around for? I gave you an order!_ _If you were lizalfos, you’d be hopping to it,_ ” he snapped.

“Lizalfos always hop anyway,” muttered Broc. Even he didn’t sound pleased to be bossed around so arrogantly.

“ _Hmph. I wonder if this one is even worth taking back to the hideout to interrogate!_ ” the Yiga footsoldier went on, as though they weren’t even talking. “ _I can’t imagine some lowly Hylian knows anything important, so I might as well just execute her here-_ ” He broke off in alarm as every band member sitting around the fire pinned back their ears and snarled at him. Broc didn’t bare his teeth like the other band members, but it was still the most aggressive gesture she’d seen from him. Rivak stood slowly to his full, towering height, looming over the Yiga.

“ _O-or clearly you feel that after all the trouble of capturing your prey, you want to dispatch her yourself_!” he said, taking a step back without seeming to realize he was doing it. “ _Very well! I will magnanimously allow you to finish her off yourself!_ ”

“He’s not very bright is he?” asked Shree, a tone of faintly amused menace in their voice.

“Not at all,” agreed Kree in the same tone.

“Bad things happen to stupid people.”

“Lots of bad things.”

“Maybe he should be careful.”

“They could happen to him.”

Rivak took a step closer, which took him from looming, to looming threateningly. The Yiga took another step back, which didn’t even take him out of Rivak’s shadow.

“ _Leave_ ,” Rivak snarled. It was strange to hear him speak Hylian, and stranger to realize that the Yiga had been speaking nothing but Hylian this whole time as well, and she’d barely noticed. Had he not understood the rest of what they were saying either? Well, even if he hadn’t understood the words, Shree and Kree’s tone of voice had needed no translation.

“ _You- you have to listen to me!_ ” he protested, sounding a little panicked now. “ _You’re supposed to be on our side! She’s the enemy!_ ”

“ _Get. Out._ ” Rivak had his lips pulled back to bare his fangs and his growl was now a steady thrum, rising in pitch.

“ _D-don’t think you’re getting away with this!_ ” He made a series of quick hand signs, though none that she recognized as words, and there was another burst of smoke. For a moment, she thought he’d fled the same way he’d appeared, but when the smoke cleared there was another Yiga standing next to him. She was taller and a bit broader in the shoulders, but she wore her hair in the same high ponytail, the same oval shaped mask, and the same red and black outfit. The only difference was that instead of a sickle hanging at her hip, she had a bow slung across her back.

“ _I hope whatever you called me over here for is important, I was in the middle of scouting,_ ” she said, sounding none too pleased. “ _What’s going on here?_ ”

“ _Mutiny! Treachery!_ ” the other Yiga said, pointing wildly between Shrike and Rivak. “ _They must be disposed of, for the honor of the Yiga clan!_ ” She looked where he was pointing, back and forth between Shrike and Rivak, sighed, and turned to Shrike.

“ _So what’s really going on here?_ ”

“ _Rin!_ ” the other Yiga wailed, stomping his foot in frustration.

“Your- _Your friend wants to execute me, I think. Rivak’s probably not going to let him,_ ” said Shrike, remembering to switch to Hylian one word in.

“ _Damn right_ ,” growled Rivak.

“Sorry this. Apprentice my is stupid young,” she said, her words in their language clumsy but surprisingly passable. _“And what makes you think you have any right to defend the honor of Yiga Clan when you can’t even act like a proper Yiga?”_ she demanded, turning back to the other.

“ _But-!”_

“ _Did you observe the situation from the shadows until you learned all that you could? Did you disguise yourself so they never knew a Yiga walked among them? Did you keep your skills in hidden reserve to surprise them with when they least expected_ _it_ _? Or did you immediately blow all your secrecy and then yell my name for everyone to hear?”_ she snapped. By the chastened way he shuffled his feet, it looked like he was well aware he’d done all of the above.

“ _But I thought-”_

“ _No, you didn’t think.”_ She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck like a misbehaving puppy and pointed his head back towards Shrike. _“What do you see?”_

“ _A Hylian enemy!”_ She gave the impression that she’d be rolling her eyes if they were visible behind the mask and shook him roughly.

“ _What do you see when you actually look? What’s she wearing?”_

“ _...clothes?”_

“ _Paint, you ignorant child, she’s wearing moblin face paint. Do you see many Hylians wearing that?”_

“ _I don’t bother myself to learn the customs of our degraded and decadent enemies,”_ he sniffed, still sounding put out. She gave him another shake.

“ _Do you bother to learn any of the customs of our allies then? Because they’re all wearing it too, and she’s sitting right in the middle of them. And then you jumped right into the middle of them too without doing any recon, or apparently any thinking at all.”_

“ _But it was-!”_

“ _I don’t care what you thought it was. What does Master Kaze say?”_

“ _Keep your blade in your hand and your tricks up your sleeve,”_ he grumbled, dropping his shoulders and sulking like her little brother after he’d been denied a second helping of apple crumble.

“ _And what did you do?”_

“ _Not that,_ ” he grumbled.

“ _Damn straight.”_ She let go of him and turned back to Shrike. _“So how did a Hylian end up here anyway?”_

“ _It seemed better than the alternative,”_ she said with a shrug, letting the other woman make of that what she would. If she wanted to assume Shrike had abandoned the Hylian society they (or at least her student) seemed to disdain, Shrike was willing to let that stand. From what she’d heard of Yiga Clan, they were incredibly insular, and tended to stick to their feud with the Sheikah when they emerged from wherever they usually hid out. She’d occasionally heard of them harassing travelers on the roads, but never seen any herself.

It seemed, however, that the emphasis on keeping things hidden she’d stressed to her apprentice was extended to Shrike as well, since she didn’t press, and even seemed to approve of the vague answer.

“ _Don’t suppose you’re interested in joining Yiga Clan then?”_ she asked.

“ _I’m already joined up with these guys,”_ she said, nodding back at the band. _“I don’t have any plans to leave.”_

“ _Right.”_ She seemed decided, nodding to herself, although what conclusion she’d come to Shrike couldn’t say.

“ _So, if we’re not trying to kill each other then, could I get a look at that bow you’re carrying? Is that a recurved composite bow?”_ Shrike asked, no longer able to hold back her curiosity.

“ _Oh, sure.”_ She slung the bow off her shoulder and held it out for Shrike to examine. It had been wrapped in strips of red and yellow fabric, but enough of it was still visible for Shrike to admire the construction, wood and horn pieces brought together into a double curved bow with a vicious appearance.

“ _You can get more power from a shorter bow constructed this way, right?”_

“ _You can, but they’re best suited for the desert. Humidity ruins them even worse than a regular bow, you can’t even look at the rain while you’re holding one. And don’t even get me started on what happens if the maker didn’t laminate it properly, then you get a bow that looks just fine but one day you’re drawing back an arrow and it decides it’s had too much stress… You’re lucky if it just breaks apart in your hands instead of shattering.”_

“ _So that’s why you all wear the masks then, huh?”_

“ _It is one of the benefits. I like not getting flying shards of wood in my eyes.”_

“ _So, I have to ask. Your masks don’t have any eyeholes. How do you see?”_

“ _Yiga Clan secret.”_ Shrike couldn’t see the woman’s face, but she could hear the grin in her voice nonetheless. _“Sure you don’t want to join?”_

“ _It’s a tempting offer, but I’ll stick where I am.”_

“ _Had to ask.”_ Her voice turned serious again. _“We do have a reason to be_ _out_ _here though, and you and your band need to know it.”_ She looked over towards Rivak. “ _It’s been confirmed that the hero is present in Hyrule once again. As you know, he means to bring death to us all, monsters, Yiga Clan, and Lord Ganon alike. Already we’ve lost scouts and footsoldiers to him, may they rise again with the blood moon.”_ She made a gesture Shrike didn’t recognize, but the reverent way the other Yiga made it with her seemed to suggest that it was ritual.

“ _Make no mistake, he’d kill you too if he came across you,”_ she added to Shrike. _“I’m sure you’_ _ve_ _heard stories about him, but those were Hylian stories, told by the ones he kills for. They don’t know what he’s really like, since he served them like a loyal dog and never bit the hand that fed him. But rest assured, he is vicious and merciless, and he cuts down all who he deems an enemy. And as long as you wear that paint, you’ll be one of them. Did you ever wonder why there’s such animosity between monsters and Hylians? He’s the cause of it. His slaughter of us is legendary, and our murders a mere children’s tale to the Hylians.”_

She paused, probably noting the conflicted expression on Shrike’s face. Of course she’d heard stories of the hero, of how he was chosen by the goddess to wield a magic sword, of his bravery and great deeds, his futile last stand, and his death a hundred years ago. Every Hylian child knew that one. Evidently the Yiga told very different stories.

“ _I know this must be hard for you to take in. He was probably the hero of your bedtime stories as a child, wasn’t he? The Hylians never knew to fear him like we do. But I’m telling you this so you can stay safe, alright?”_ Her voice softened a little. _“You’ve chosen the right side, you know. I don’t want to see you killed for it. If you see anyone who even looks like the hero, well… You’re good with that bow you carry too, aren’t you? I can tell. Find a hiding place where he’ll never see you, and shoot to kill. None of us will be safe until he’s dead for good.”_

“ _I’ll keep that in mind,”_ Shrike said. She didn’t answer either yes or no, and the other woman clearly noticed, but she just nodded again, almost as though she was pleased by the evasiveness of her answer.

“ _Good. When the moment comes, you’ll see the truth. Remember, it’s not just you he’_ _d_ _kill, it’s all of us.”_ She gestured to take in not just herself, but her student, and the band, Rivak, Broc, Shree and Kree. _“And if you ever do want to join Yiga Clan, know that we’d have you in a heartbeat.”_ She leaned in close, enough that Shrike could feel the porcelain of her mask brushing against her cheek, to whisper in her ear. _“You already heard my foolish student yell it for all to hear, but my name is Rin. Speak it to any member of the clan, and they will bring you to us.”_ She pulled back again, and Shrike could hear the grin return to her voice. _“You’d fit in very well, I think.”_

“ _I’ll remember it,”_ she promised. _“And if I ever want to learn how to do that smoke thing you do, I’ll know where to go.”_

“ _It’s a very useful skill,”_ agreed Rin. _“And now, we’ve delivered our news, and we have further scouting to do. Thank you for not shooting my foolish student. He’s young, and very stupid, but I’d hate to have to housebreak a new one.”_

“ _Teacher_ _!”_ wailed the erstwhile student, while Rin gave Shrike what she assumed would probably have been a conspiratorial glance without the mask.

“ _In gratitude, allow me to make you a gift.”_ She made another hand sign Shrike didn’t recognize, and in a smaller puff of smoke she was suddenly holding… a bunch of bananas? “ _The pride of the Yiga Clan. Please enjoy them.”_ She handed them over to Shrike and then bowed, putting a hand on the back of her student’s neck and pushing him into a much deeper bow when he failed to mimic the gesture. _“I hope our paths will cross again.”_ She put her hands together in one final sign and then vanished, her student doing the same a few seconds slower.

“Well huh. That was something.” Shrike sat down heavily next to the fire, bananas still held in her hands.

“The hero. Well that explains some things.” Rivak sat down next to her. “Marshfire band three territories away used to trade with us, but I haven’t heard from them in weeks. Guess now we know why.”

“They were rude and they picked fights with anyone they thought they could beat,” said Broc, sitting down on the other side of her. “But I don’t think they deserved to die for it.”

“Guess they picked a fight they couldn’t win this time,” said Rivak thoughtfully.

“You don’t think anyone deserves to die,” said Shrike. “I don’t think…” She paused, speaking slowly as she tried to sort out the jumble of conflicting thoughts. “She said I was on the right side. I don’t think I want to pick a side. You’re my band, but… My parents, my brothers, they’re all Hylian. I didn’t throw them away when I joined you, and I can’t throw you away to go back to them either.”

“It won’t matter what you want if the hero picks a side for you,” said Rivak, then growled when Broc leaned over and smacked him lightly on the elbow, which was as high up as he could reach. “Hey!”

“Of course it matters! Not wanting to hurt people is a choice. It’s harder to make when someone else is trying to hurt you, but you can always choose it. I don’t care about the hero. Maybe we’ll never even see him. I care about Shrike.”

“We all care about Shrike!” Shree said cheerfully.

“Lots and lots,” agreed Kree.

“Who else would cook fancy duck for us?”

“And teach us new recipes?”

“We never cared that she’s Hylian.”

“Now she’s Hylian and Firethorn.”

“She can be both!”

“And we’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.”

Shrike couldn’t help laughing at that.

“Good to know I have your support, but I thought we were talking about not fighting?”

“If Shrike can be Hylian and Boko, we can fight and not fight,” said Shree with certainty.

“Can we?”

“Probably.”

“Maybe?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Well that’s settled,” said Kree. “But I have an important question for Shrike.”

“Yeah?” she asked. Kree pointed to the bunch of bananas in her hands.

“Do you know how to cook anything with those?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yiga Clan certainly has a lot to say about the hero! I guess they don't like him very much. 
> 
> I'm also having fun flipping the table and using italics to denote when someone is speaking a different language, but for the language that would probably be this setting's stand in for English instead of the "other" language. Shrike is speaking monster language as her default now, and switching to Hylian in this context is what feels "other" to her. Rivak doesn't speak much in that section because Rivak still hasn't bothered to learn much Hylian. 
> 
> I couldn't figure out how to work this in, but Yiga Clan members don't receive a name until they complete their training as a full fledged warrior. Once they receive it, they keep it a closely guarded secret, telling few people what it really is. It helps to maintain the appearance of Yiga Clan as a shadowy faceless army, since you can never count how many there are, or know what skills the one you're up against has. Only a few who reach the rank of Master within the clan are allowed to use their name freely, in the belief that they've become so skilled that their name strikes fear into the heart of all enemies who hear it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shrike and Broc share some childhood stories with each other, and nothing important happens.

“Your horse definitely hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you! He’s just shy. Here, give him another piece of apple.” Broc pressed another chunk of apple into Shrike’s hand, pulling her fingers into a flat, open palm, and coaxing her to hold her hand out to the horse. She was a little dubious about that part. No matter how many times Broc assured her it wouldn’t bite her if she held her hand flat, the horse still had teeth and anything with teeth could bite.

The horse in question was one of the stocky, comparatively smaller ones, not one of the streamlined, long-legged horses that stood several inches taller. She’d heard stories that the entirety of the royal stables, every hunter, warhorse, and racehorse in the lot, had been let loose in the chaos following the calamity, and that even now there were horses roaming Hyrule who descended from that noble blood. This one, however, had more carthorse than racehorse in him, if she was any judge. No horse of noble blood would be giving her such a cynical look, she was sure.

He eyed the chunk of apple in her palm suspiciously, snorted, then put his nose in the air and pranced a wide circle around her to get over on Broc’s other side. He nosed the bokoblin’s shoulder affectionately until Broc laughed and gave up the chunk of apple he was holding, stroking the horse’s nose as he chewed it. When Broc made as if to stop petting him, he shoved his nose back under Broc’s hand and whuffed entreatingly at him until Broc started again.

“See?” Shrike asked, feeling that this was a textbook illustration of her point. “He doesn’t like me.”

“He’s just not used to you. I think the Hylian who used to own him didn’t treat him well, so now he’s a little scared of them,” said Broc.

“How do you know a Hylian used to own him? Maybe he’s just a grumpy wild horse.”

“Hmm. Well, when I found him, he seemed tamer than wild horses usually are, and his fur was worn down a little on his face and back like he he wore a bridle and harness a lot before he got loose. But mostly I think so because he’s a gelding.” Broc crinkled his eyes at her in amusement as she growled at him in mock annoyance.

“You could have led with that.”

“You didn’t even notice?” he asked innocently.

“I wasn’t looking!” she protested. “Alright, fine, maybe he doesn’t like Hylians and it’s not just me, my point still stands. How’d you even make friends with him then?”

“He had a stone in his hoof, I could tell by the way I saw him walking, and since he used to be tame he knew people could help him with that. With the wild horses, it takes a long time to get them to hold their foot up and let you touch their hooves, and you have to convince them to trust you enough just to get that close first. This smart boy,” Broc patted the horse affectionately, “figured out right away that if I was holding a pick and I wasn’t holding a rope, I would help him get it out without trying to catch him.”

“Oh, so he’s got purely selfish motivation,” Shrike teased. “You give him treats and take care of him, and he hangs around looking pretty.”

“He is pretty.” Broc stroked the horse’s nose affectionately, then solemnly reached over and patted Shrike’s head. “Don’t be jealous, you’re pretty too.”

“I feel like that’s not as much of a compliment as you think it is when it comes right after the horse,” Shrike told him, watching said horse nose at Broc’s hand to see if any more apples had magically appeared. He was pretty enough as horses went, she guessed, ruddy brown, with a white rump speckled with brown spots, and white flecks here and there on the rest of him like he’d trotted through a light snowfall. He probably had been a carthorse, maybe a plowhorse; he was stocky and muscled enough for it even if he was a little small. He’d probably have had to work hard to pull anything he was hitched to though. Maybe that was why he’d run off. Whatever the reason, he must have been running wild for some time, since if he’d had shoes they were all long gone now. “Do you have a saddle or anything for him?”

“No.” Broc shook his head. “I had a saddle blanket I liked a while back, we traded it from Wolfrun band, but it fell apart after a while. And then the horse I was friends with after that, she hated being ridden anyway, so I never got another one, and Wolfrun band moved along, hmm, maybe ten years ago? Kree doesn’t make blankets, and none of the other bands we trade around here do either.”

“Maybe next time I go to the stable, I can try to get you one,” she offered. “No promises though. The stablehands keep trying to convince me to buy a whole horse, and they’re very insistent salespeople. I don’t want to try buying some tack and walk away with three horses I didn’t intend to own.”

“Heh, I don’t own him, I’m just friends with him. I think that’s the only way to really get to know something.”

“Maybe you’re right. So I’m going to respect his desire not to be anywhere near me. You know, like a friend would.” Broc just snickered, and leaned in to playfully bump his shoulder against hers.

“Alright then, you can be a friend and come help me look for sunclaw plants. I need more of them for that bruise ointment, we’re running low.”

“Sure, those like shady spots but not full shade, right? That’s good terrain to scare up birds, I’ll go grab my bow,” she said, rising eagerly.

“Alright, meet me back here then. Don’t take too long or I’ll leave without you!” Broc called, his playful tone and crinkled eyes preventing his words from sounding remotely like a threat he’d carry out.

“I’ll hurry!” she called back. She did, grabbing her bow and quiver and slinging them over her shoulder, then jogging back to where she’d left Broc. His horse had wandered off, head down to graze, and Broc was sitting back and just watching him, like there was nothing else in the world he’d rather be doing right now. He stood again when he saw her, and waved to indicate the direction they were heading in, and the pair of them were off.

They did a lot of foraging in the woods, but in this case they were headed for where the woods started to clear, into tall grass and scrubby growth that might be a full-fledged part of the forest in another hundred years. It was strange to think that Broc might still be alive to see that. And she wouldn’t, of course, but it wasn’t as if she’d ever expected to live a hundred years anyway. Frankly she wouldn’t want to even if it was on offer; the way Rivak had described it made it sound like it came with more drawbacks than she was willing to risk.

She looked over at where Broc was kneeling on the ground, carefully digging up a sunclaw plant so he didn’t damage the thick roots, which he’d use alongside the leaves. He looked her little brother’s age, with the tip of his tongue sticking out in concentration, but then too sometimes he talked like someone wise beyond his age. If she hadn’t known otherwise, she’d have described him as an old soul. Well, perhaps that was truer than she’d known.

“We call that one _bitterroot_ in Hylian,” she told him. “It’s, uh… ash-tasting root? Metal-tasting? Sour-tasting, but the flavor’s worse, bigger.”

“The root does taste bad even if you cook it,” Broc agreed. “You can eat it, but it’s more useful as medicine, so I don’t see why you would unless you had to. We call it sunclaw because of the way the leaves are shaped, see?” He indicated the curved leaves, that curled in on themselves a little and came to a point at the ends. “They look like little claws, and they always point up. Like they want to climb up to the sun. There’s a Netal story about how she climbed one all the way up once.”

“What’s netal?” Shrike asked, not recognizing the word.

“Not what, who. She’s a story, a moblin who was almost as small as a bokoblin so her band didn’t think she was worth anything, and so she went out and tried to find her worth,” Broc’s eyes crinkled fondly. “It’s been a long time since I thought about her. In this one, the sunbird stops carrying the sun down at night, just stays in the sky so it’s always day and no one can sleep. There’s a sunclaw plant that grows all the way up to the sun, so everyone comes to climb it and make the sun go down again. But all of the moblin warriors are too heavy to climb it, they just fall down because the leaves can’t hold them up. Only Netal is light enough to climb them. So Netal climbs all the way to the top, and she fights the sunbird. It has to fly away from her, and the sun goes with it, so night can finally come and everyone can sleep again.”

“I never heard that one before,” said Shrike. Well, she had never heard any moblin stories before, but when Broc had started talking about them, she’d expected to recognize something about them anyway. To find that the stories were familiar, just with different heroes. But this one she’d never heard anything like before. Broc shrugged, looking a little wistful.

“It’s a story for cubs, and there haven’t been any cubs for a long time. Not a lot of reason to tell the stories. But there’s lots of Netal stories, and she used to be one of my favorites. I always thought her band must not be a very good one though, because there are so many stories about how she did all these brave things, and they still never accepted her.” He tucked the plant he’d finished digging up, root and all, into his gathering pouch. “It’s funny, everyone knows the Netal stories, so there are always people making up more of them. But there’s no stories about her coming back to her band, because then that would be the end of the stories. So, the more things she does, the more people make new stories about her, and she becomes greater and greater, but she can never go home. It must be lonely, being in so many stories.”

“Was she a real person?” Shrike asked. Broc shrugged.

“Maybe. If she was, I hope she got a good ending to her story.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“What kind of stories do Hylians tell?” Broc asked, starting to dig up another plant.

“Oh, uh, it’s been a while since I was young enough for kids’ stories… Let me see. My dad used to have all these stories about a group of animals who lived together, and one of them would do something stupid and need to be saved by the others. The stubborn goat, and the rowdy dog, and the careless duck, things like that. And wouldn’t you know it, the animals almost always did something our parents had scolded us for earlier, and after they just barely avoided disaster, they realized they shouldn’t be misbehaving. Like, say, the stubborn goat who nearly got eaten by night monsters when she refused to stop playing with her new bow and come inside for bed.” The corners of her lips twitched up at the memory.

“That’s sweet,” said Broc, sounding charmed.

“Heh, yeah, it was pretty cute. The thing I always liked was that whatever their problem was in one story, it let them be the hero in another. Like, the rowdy dog scares off the monster by being loud and playing too rough, or the stubborn goat wouldn’t go along with everyone’s plan to swim in the deep part of the lake, so she’s the only one left to help when they start floundering. So it wasn’t really about how you had to change the way you were, just that you had to be thoughtful about how you acted. None of them were really bad, they just needed to be in the right situation for what they were to be helpful.”

“I like that,” said Broc, crinkling his eyes cheerfully.

“Oh and Kent used to love stories about the hero and the princess-” she paused, remembering that the hero was not exactly a pleasant children’s tale to monsterkind.

“You have stories about the hero?” Broc asked thoughtfully, hands stilling next to the half unearthed plant. “I guess Hylians would, wouldn’t they? He’s their hero after all. What are they like?”

“They’re sort of… they’re not all about the princess’ knight from a hundred years ago- well they sort of are, but they’re also kind of about _the_ hero, just like the princess in the stories isn’t one specific princess, she’s sort of all of them. He fights- something evil, and saves the princess, or sometimes the princess saves him, and they restore peace to the land. I think people probably make up just as many stories about them too.”

“We have stories about the hero too,” Broc said, a little distantly. “They’re not very nice ones. They’re scare-stories, things you tell the little ones to keep them from wandering off.” He shook his head a little and went back to his digging. “But they also say that he’s ten feet tall with a sword that shoots thunder and four eyes made of fire all around his head to find cubs who wandered away from their bands. Some stories are just stories. If the hero is back, he’s just a Hylian. A strong one, probably, but I know for a fact they never get that tall.”

“I don’t know if I believe he’s really back. Every so often, you get someone claiming that they’re the real hero, reincarnated to come save the land. Usually they’re just trying to scam people for whatever they can get,” Shrike said. “They hang around for a while and then vanish when someone calls them out or when the gifts stop flowing. When my mom was a kid, this Sheikah guy showed up in her village with a fancy sword and told everyone he was the hero and mooched off them for a couple weeks. Every so often he’d leave and come back with some old guardian parts, and tell them it was off guardians he killed. Eventually they caught him taking apart the busted ones to scavenge the parts out of them, and chased him off. Anyway, they’ve all been fakes as far as I know. Maybe this one’s just more convincing than most.”

“Maybe.” Broc sounded as though he wasn’t concerned much either way. Maybe he wasn’t. After all, what did the hero have to do with them? Even if he was abroad again, it was hardly as if he was going to wander down to their uneventful patch of woods.

“So do the Yiga come through here a lot?” she asked curiously, thinking back to the warning that had been conveyed to them a few weeks ago. She hadn’t seen any more Yiga since, even though she’d kept an eye out for Rin, and even for her sulky apprentice.

“Not often. It’s rare to see them,” Broc said, to her faint disappointment. “Well, rare to see them out of disguise anyway. I think they come through more often pretending to be Hylians, but well, we can’t really tell when they do. We’ve only seen them openly in the masks like that a few times. I was surprised the one knew any of our language too, usually they don’t.”

“So they usually talk to you in Hylian?”

“Usually order us around in Hylian,” Broc snorted. “Most of them don’t think we’re very smart. I liked the teacher this time, she was polite even if she didn’t know many words of our language. She even knew to speak to Rivak as the band leader.”

“Yeah, I kind of liked her.” And wasn’t that a strange thought, to have gotten along so well with someone who was her people’s sworn enemy. Well… She glanced over at Broc. Maybe not so strange. Maybe she’d just been in the right situation.

“Me too.” Broc tucked the last plant into his gathering pouch. “Maybe we’ll see her again.”

“Maybe. I’d like that,” Shrike said, a little wistfully. “We probably won’t though. I kind of think this is going to end up like all the other fake heroes, whoever it is will sneak away and the story will fizzle out without a good ending.”

“That’s so pessimistic, wouldn’t you rather have a story with a good ending? One where something exciting happens and you meet all your friends again?” Broc asked playfully.

“Nah, I don’t think I want to be in an exciting story. Those are too much trouble.” Shrike leaned back onto her hands. “I’d rather things stay the way they are now. I like this.”

“I don’t think anything ever stays the way it is.” Broc sat back as well, leaning until his shoulder rested against Shrike’s, side by side. “But I like things the way they are now too.”

* * *

That evening, another beam of red light shot through the sky, converging on the same point as the first. The band wondered vaguely what it might mean, but it had lost its novelty after the appearance of the first one produced no other noticeable effect. After all, it couldn’t have much to do with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got very self-indulgently meta, and I'm not sorry. Anyway, obviously nothing plot-important has happened or will happen. That hero guy? Probably fake.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During hard times, the band takes care of each other.

Another red moon, and another night at the stable. The staff was starting to get to recognize her, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because she was welcomed in without question now whenever she showed up (some new travelers were looked at with scrutiny before being allowed in, and a very few turned away) but a bad thing because the attendant there was absolutely determined that this time she wasn’t going to leave without a horse.

“Shrike! I have just the horse for you, I picked her out _specially_. She’s sweet and gentle, even someone who’s scared of horses like you-”

“I’m not scared of horses,” Shrike said firmly, shoving the armload of venison she’d caught and wrapped in leaves earlier that day into her arms. (She suspected that her frequent gifts of game had contributed to the warm welcome she now received.) “I just don’t need a horse. I’m a hunter. I have to be _stealthy_. I can’t do that hauling an animal twice the size of a deer around.”

“Well you don’t take the horse out stalking with you, silly! You leave her at your camp. Isn’t a deer heavy? Wouldn’t you like a nice horse to help you carry it?”

“I’m not buying the horse.” Shrike turned her back on the conversation pointedly, ignoring the plaintive “Just look at her! You’ll fall in love, I promise!” She helped herself to a bowl of the stew bubbling away on the hearth (mutton with potatoes and carrots, what might have been some tomatoes before they’d dissolved into the rich broth, and a dash of cream to thicken it, a fairly traditional hylian stew) and looked for a place to sit down.

“Hunter girl!” She looked up to see a familiar face waving cheerfully at her, despite a rather impressive black eye, and indicating the empty space at his side. She made her way over to Mako, who beamed. “How fortuitous that we should meet again! Truly, the winds of fate are smiling tonight.”

“What happened to you?” she asked bluntly. The smile wavered slightly, then vanished with a sigh.

“As direct as ever, I see, my fine hunter of words. Alas, I was beset by bandits.”

“Monsters?” she asked, her stomach falling, but he shook his head.

“Merely Hylians. I fear not everyone out on the road is as nice as I am. Well, times are difficult for everyone. But it’s for those reasons one carries a good stout staff.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Your kindness warms me. But what about yourself? What adventures have you met with?”

“Just the usual,” she said. He didn’t need to know that the usual consisted of running with a band of bokoblins, after all. “The deer are running well around here. I did some trading with a nearby farm, I brought the deer, they kept the meat and gave me some of the leather.” Shree had been pleased to get that, too. Shrike _could_ tan hides herself, but it was a messy, smelly job, and she’d much preferred to simply supply the deer, and let someone else the rest. The farmer had been pleased to have some wild game to supplement his larder, particularly when it consisted of deer and rabbits that had been nibbling on his crops, so everyone came out of that happy. “I could use a new bowstring soon though. I’d rather have silk if I can get it, but it’s hard to find people selling it...”

“You are a singularly focused individual,” said Mako with a slight laugh. “If I meet anyone trading in silk, I’ll endeavor to procure some. I assume I’ll continue to find you here?”

“Yeah, I don’t plan to leave any time soon. Thanks.” She nodded her gratitude. “So I guess they didn’t let you spice up dinner this time?”

“Alas, no. I arrived too late in the process, and its fate had already been decided.” He sighed in mock sorrow. “Well, maybe next time. I have a new spice blend, but it’s really best suited for seafood anyhow...” He looked at her coyly from under his lashes, head tilted ever so slightly. Shrike snorted and stilled her fingers where they were lightly tapping out amusement on the table.

“Alright, you might as well show me then.” He beamed at her and pulled his pack up onto the table. It wasn’t even fastened shut, she noted wryly, and he beamed at her without the least hint of shame.

“As it happens, I may have a thing or two set aside that one such as yourself might be interested in...”

* * *

Shrike was in a fairly good mood as she headed back her pack a little fuller and her purse a little lighter. In addition to Mako’s spices, she’d gotten a blanket for Broc, or rather for his horse she guessed. She hadn’t been able to come up with a good reason why she could possibly want a saddle with no horse, but she’d come up with a story about how the thick, coarsely woven blanket was just the thing she wanted to sit on when she was lying in wait for game. Huh, actually, maybe it was. She knew a couple of likely place to put out some salt as bait for deer, and there was no reason she couldn’t. Setting up a bait spot now that she knew the woods around here would be a lot easier than stalking through the forest looking for something...

She was jolted out of her thoughts as she got back to camp. She’d seen them come back from what she thought were some rough nights after the blood moon, but they’d had nothing on this. Shree was curled in on themselves in a miserable ball, getting dried blood sponged away from their cuts by Kree, who looked to have already gone through the cleanup. (She wasn’t sure how she could tell which one was Shree and which one was Kree today when they weren’t wearing their status marks, she just could.) Even Broc, normally the least affected, looked like he’d gone a round with an angry wildcat. Rivak looked like he’d gone three rounds with an angry bear.

No, she realized, as Broc examined an ugly gash on Rivak’s leg, running from his knee to his ankle, that she was afraid to look too closely at. That slice on the leg, something already bandaged on his torso that, by the size of the violet bloodstain starting to seep through over his ribs, must be big, the assortment of other cuts too many to count. All the wounds he’d taken were below chest level, as though his opponent had been significantly shorter than him. Three rounds with an angry Hylian then.

Rivak roared as Broc abruptly dumped a splash of something from the flask he was holding over the length of the gash in his leg. He snatched the flask away, bringing it to his mouth instead and downing a healthy swig that must have been half the contents, but Broc didn’t try to take it back as he prepared needle and thread.

“You’ll make yourself sick drinking that on an empty stomach, it’s barely good enough to clean a wound with,” he scolded, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He sounded… tired, in a way she’d never heard from him before. Rivak growled and took another swig from the flask.

“Just get it over with.”

Normally she was greeted with waves and shouts as soon as she came within sight, but this time she was able to get fairly close before anyone noticed her.

“Shrike.” Rivak raised his head to focus on her. “You’re back.” She dropped her pack unceremoniously and hurried forward. She’d been feeling… she wasn’t sure what, some sense of apprehension that said he would look at her and bare his teeth, for real this time, demand to know what she was doing here when her people had done this. But as soon as she was close enough, all he did was reach out and clasp her shoulder (a little clumsily, as if he was already feeling the alcohol’s effects) and squeeze roughly. “Good. Go help Shree.”

She wanted to stay right where she was, wanted to hover over Broc as he worked, and wait for Rivak to growl that he was fine. But it wasn’t fine, and another of her band needed her. She went to sit by Shree.

Shree flinched as Shrike came near, curling into themselves further, and raking their claws down their arms in a way that drew blood from the barely scabbed over cuts, heedless of Kree’s dismayed whine.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s my fault, I’m sorry,” they whimpered. Kree was shaking their head, repeating it’s “it’s okay, it’s okay, shh, shh, you’re okay, don’t” as though speaking over the words could make the distress in them vanish.

“Hey, hey it’s fine.” It was bad enough to hear Shree and Kree talking across each other, like Shree didn’t even hear, without watching one of them hurt themselves more too. She reached out and took Shree’s wrists gently, pulling them away before they could score their skin more deeply. They’d already drawn little beads of blood, and the indigo smeared across her hands like macabre paint.

“It’s not fine, it’s my fault!” they wailed. “There was a Hylian and I just- I wanted to tear him open, I shouldn’t have, I couldn’t _think_. He had a sword and he was winning and Rivak- Rivak got between us…”

“He got me pretty good before he ran off.” Rivak spoke through clenched teeth, the pain as Broc stitched his cut clearly not dulled entirely. “I think I got him good back, but he could still run. He probably made it.”

“What if it’s you next time?” Shree asked quietly, horror and regret in their voice in equal measure. She wasn’t sure whether they were talking to Rivak or her, or maybe both. But either way, it didn’t matter, since her answer was the same.

“It won’t be,” she said, not sure how she could be so certain, but knowing it in the same way she knew which twin was which. Impulsively, she wrapped her arm around Shee’s shoulders and pulled them in close.

It was one of the more awkward hugs she’d given — Shree didn’t seem to know what to do with their arms and ended up with them tucked against their chest and their hands fisted in the collar of Shrike’s tunic — but after a moment Shree leaned in and buried their face against her shoulder with a soft whine. On her other side, Kree moved in closer until they were pressed against her side.

It wasn’t a fix, not exactly, but it was affection, and reassurance, and certainty that they would never hurt her, and for now, it was enough.

* * *

After everyone’s wounds had been bandaged, Shrike ended up being the one who had to go out and get food, by virtue of being the only one whole enough for it. Rivak tried, until Broc threatened to sit on him, and then Rivak turned it around and refused to let him go either. Shrike snuck out of camp while the pair of them were arguing because frankly she though they were both right in that the other needed to stay put and rest.

She wanted a deer, something with enough meat on it that they wouldn’t have to hunt tomorrow either, and for once the goddess must have obliged her; a young buck stepped out of the brush upwind of her, without even noticing her. It was a perfect shot. It never saw her, didn’t even have time to be afraid, which was how she preferred it.

Rivak and Broc were still arguing when she got back (like an old married couple, she thought with amusement) and stopped abruptly when she started slicing the meat into the cooking pot as though they hadn’t realized she’d already been gone while they debated who went with her. She raised an eyebrow at the pair of them, and Broc just sighed.

She wanted something easy and fast, so she sliced the meat into small chunks, and threw them in with salt, pepper, a handful of shredded herbs she’d pick on the way back, and a probably inadvisable amount of butter. But damn it, butter made things taste good, and that was all she cared about right now. It started sizzling as soon as it hit the hot pan, and she used the ladle to baste spoonfuls of the herbed butter over it so the meat could brown on all sides. She served it out, and while the band started in on it, made some quick preparations to the apples she’d picked on the way back, wrapping them in leaves and setting them next to the fire to cook, before she served herself.

It was amazing how much better they looked halfway through a meal, but Shrike was well aware of how comforting a good meal could be. Her father had taught her the trick of it. She still remembered, how on the rare times he’d found her upset enough to cry (ranging from the first time she fell out of a tree when she was six, to the hopeless crush who hadn’t liked her back at sixteen) he had always dropped whatever he was doing, brought her into the kitchen, and didn’t even protest when she perched on the counter instead of a chair. He’d say “tell me about it” and while she did, he chopped and measured and stirred. By the time the whole story had come out, the kitchen was filled with the warmth of the oven and the comforting scent of something baking. And once she’d talked out all her woes, and he handed her a slice of the nutbread or pie or whatever else he’d baked, things didn’t seem so bad. It seemed it worked for the band as well.

“So,” she said into the silence. “Last night was bad.” Rivak grimaced.

“Bad. The red moon was louder than it’s been in a while.”

“What can we do about it, then?” she asked.

“Not much we can do, unless you know a way to get the Calamity to calm down,” Rivak said, his claws tapping out frustration on the side of the bowl. “Maybe you should-” Shrike has suspected he might try to tell her she should leave for her own safety, and she wasn’t about to let that one get off the ground.

“What if we went somewhere there weren’t any other Hylians?” she asked. Rivak paused, considering, and she went on hopefully. “Nothing else can hurt you as badly. And… it sounds like maybe they cause a worse response, get you hurt more. We could go somewhere else until the bad stretch ends.”

“That might work,” Rivak said slowly. “The bad ones usually only last a few red moons. Sometimes only one or two. We could head north, go past Hyperion’s territory...”

“It’s been a long time. I’d like to see him again,” said Broc hopefully. “I think it’s a good idea. If it gets bad again, we’ll be somewhere more remote. But where will Shrike-”

“I’ll figure something out,” she assured them. “I’ve slept up trees before when I had to. Who’s Hyperion?” Rivak’s ears flicked up to a more playful angle, as he showed a little bit of amused fang at her.

“You’ll see when we meet him.”

“Oh come on-” she began, but the clear plan and opportunity to tease her seemed to have finally put Rivak into a better mood.

“We should go see what happened to Marshfire band too before we move on. If the red moon brought them back, we should let them know that we’re moving on,” he said.

“I guess we should,” said Broc unenthusiastically. Rivak crinkled his eyes at him in amusement and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“You sound so excited, I know they’re your favorite.”

“They’re always so _rude_ ,” Broc sighed.

“They’re also the ones we get alcohol from, and we should stock up if we’re leaving,” Rivak said. “Who knows where we’re getting it once we head up north, and you apparently need it to torment me with. You and Shrike come with me, we’ll give them the news, and Shree and Kree can stay here and pack up the camp.”

“You’ve got it.”

“You can count on us.” It was more subdued than usual, but Shrike was still relieved to hear the twins back to their usual speech patterns. It seemed like a sign that they felt a little better too, at least.

“I’d like to leave a note at the stable too, just to tell them I’m moving on,” she added. “So they don’t get worried or come out looking for me. Since I show up there pretty regularly, they usually expect me now. I don’t know how I’m going to keep them from selling me a horse though,” she sighed. Maybe she could just speak to the stablemaster and avoid that particular attendant…

“A horse?” Broc asked curiously.

“Oh yeah, that reminds, me I got you something,” she said, going over to her pack to grab the blanket. “Here, this is for you. For your horse. But yeah, one of the attendants there has been trying to match me up with a different horse every time I’m there.”

“Aww but Shrike, we could have two horses! Maybe you should,” Broc teased, crinkling his eyes at her.

“I barely want one horse, who I’m still pretty sure doesn’t like me. There’s no way I’m putting up with two, and if you push it, you’re not getting dessert,” she informed him.

“There’s dessert?” Broc asked. Normally the twins would be the ones to jump on that kind of comment, since they both had an insatiable sweet tooth. She pretended she hadn’t glanced their way to check on their reaction, and that she hadn’t noticed the faint pause where everyone had been waiting for them to speak up before Broc had said it instead. She was starting to second guess what had seemed like such a good plan at the time. Maybe it was too much of a reminder of, well, everything. But the unmistakable rich scent of the baked apples was wafting from the leaf-wrapped bundles sitting next to the coals now, signaling that they were done.

She fished the bundles out, and carefully began the process of unwrapping them and transferring their contents into bowls without burning her fingers. Shree and Kree didn’t say anything, but they were at least watching her intently.

She should have served the band leader first, it was custom, but this time Rivak gave her a short jerk of his head no, and nodded at the twins instead. She crinkled her eyes at him in grateful understanding and picked up a second bowl, taking them over.

“So, you mentioned you liked these a while back, and I thought I’d try making them,” she said, holding them out. “I didn’t have any honey, but I thought brown sugar might be the next best thing.” The baked apples sat steaming in their bowls, the scent wafting temptingly. She’d cored them, and stuffed them with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and chopped nuts, until the sugar caramelized and the mixture ran down the side of the apple to glaze it golden brown. The twins stared at her, and for one long moment she thought maybe she shouldn’t have stirred up old memories after all. But then, simultaneously, the pair of them crinkled their eyes at her, the tense, miserable set of their ears relaxing.

“You remembered.”

“Thank you.”

“We’ve never had it this way before.”

“It will be nice to try it.”

“It smells just as good.”

“Don’t burn your mouth eating it,” she said, which wasn't exactly what she meant but close enough, something in her finally relaxing too.

Nothing was broken beyond repair. This, too, would heal, and she’d make baked apples every damn day if that was what it took.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you’re curious, the Hylian the band fought wasn’t Link. But for some reason, the Blood Moon imparted a particularly strong hatred for sword-wielding, male Hylians this time. Recent events may have something to do with it. 
> 
> On a lighter note, it is a constant source of amusement to me that while Shrike is on a complex personal journey about her bonds with others, pretty much everyone she interacts with who isn’t the band sees her as “stoic kind of rude hot jock who thinks with her bow." They are not entirely wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since this last updated, huh? 2020 was a crazy year for me (just like everyone else), and I haven't had as much time to write as I wanted to. This chapter was half-finished for months, but I just didn't have the energy to finish and post it. I want to especially thank those of you who left comments and kudos; I read and appreciate every one of them, and going back and rereading those really helped give me the motivation to write again.

In the end, it took a few days before Rivak and Broc were up to making even the relatively short trip to visit Marshfire band. She suspected most of Broc’s “recovery period” was to enforce the same on Rivak, who they both knew would have been up and about as soon as he could. She didn’t blame him for being protective; bokoblins and moblins healed a lot faster than Hylians, but the scars visible when Broc removed the bandages where still fairly ugly. She was glad to wait the extra days even if Rivak huffed about it.

Finally, they headed out. It was a few hours walk to the other band’s territory, which, as their name suggested, sat on the edge of a wetland. They brought the horse, at Broc’s insistence that he needed the exercise, which she thought was an excuse to keep Rivak from trying to overexert himself carrying a heavy load back.

When they arrived, they found the camp in even more chaos than usual, bokoblins going this way and that, and various things strewn about, getting picked up, moved, squabbled over, dropped, and picked up again. The band leader, a rangy black moblin, stood up and wandered over once he noticed them. “Hey Rivak. Hey runt, colorless,” he greeted them. “You’re here at a bad time. Only one warrior with you too.” He openly eyed them up and down, dismissing Broc and Shrike, eyes lingering on Rivak’s fresh scars as though calculating his odds in a fight.

“Don’t try it, Teelik,” Rivak growled, though without bothering to put much force into it. Teelik threatened or tried to pick a fight with at least one of the smaller band members every time they visited, just to see if he could get away with it. Although it rubbed Shrike the wrong way every time, it was mostly display. Broc had called it a status thing with his ears pinned back in the unimpressed dismissal that meant he didn’t consider it important enough to explain further. Rivak had shrugged and told her that some bands put more weight on being able to push people around than Firethorn did. Shrike had told them both that if he ever made a go at her, she would put a spear through his foot. Rivak had nodded approvingly at that and showed her the best angle for it.

“Yeah, yeah.” Teelik took a step back at Rivak’s growl, shoulders loose and ears held at an unconcerned angle, making very sure they knew he was only backing down because he didn’t care. (Shrike knew better. He always backed down when Rivak stepped forward and bared his teeth, and it gave her a sense of proprietary pride in their band leader every time.) “If you want to trade, you’re lucky I guess. We’ll take all the dried meat you’ve got. We’ll give you double the usual for it.”

That was an unusual offer, since Teelik would usually argue down to the last scrap, determined to make sure he was getting the better end of the deal (or maybe just to continue aggravating Rivak.) Rivak glanced over the chaos of the camp again, and then back at the slouching moblin.

“You’re leaving.”

“Of course we’re leaving, and you’ll get the hell out too if you’re smart. You know what’s going on, right? We’re strong, way stronger than your little band- alright, alright, don’t growl at me, make your pet Hylian put down the pointy thing before it hurts itself. I’m not challenging you this time, I’ve got better things to do. We’ve got more than your band then, does that make you happy? And the hero still wiped us all out. Yeah that’s right, I said the hero, and I know it was him too. We’re not sticking around for him to do it again.”

“You know it was the hero? How?” Broc asked, leaning around Rivak.

“Hey, say please when you talk to your betters, runt- okay, okay, don’t _growl,_ Rivak. I know it was the hero because what other Hylian could take down a whole band? There’s eleven of- there _was_ eleven of us. Two of us didn’t come back.” His voice lost the arrogant, certain tone, and Shrike thought he sounded almost regretful. But then he narrowed his eyes at Broc, before the bokoblin could open his mouth. “ _Don’t_ say anything, runt, we don’t want your pity. And he had one of those old Sheikah tools no one uses anymore, the one the Yiga told us to keep an eye out for. So we’re getting the hell out, and if you’re smart, you’ll do the same. We’re moving out now, you barely showed up in time.”

“Where are you going?” Rivak asked. “Happens we’ve been thinking about moving on too.”

“And you obviously don’t want to fight for territory with us, you’d lose. We’re heading south, I hear there’s warm weather and easy pickings down there. Don’t follow us, we don’t want to deal with you yapping at our heels.”

“Wasn’t going to,” said Rivak, sounding satisfied, and Teelik gave him an ears-back suspicious look, like he was wondering whether he was missing out on something. “So that’s why you want food that carries, huh? Lucky for you that’s what we brought.” He gestured to Shrike, who handed him the bundle she carried and started unloading the others from the horse (as the lowest ranking band member, she got stuck with fetch and carry duty). Rivak held the first out to Teelik for his inspection.

“I already told you I’d take it, didn’t I? Double the usual drink for it,” Teelik said, his tone a little more urgent than he probably wanted them to notice.

“Deal then.” Rivak nodded in agreement, and Teelik snatched the proffered bundle, barking orders at a pair of nearby bokoblins to pack the rest up. His ears flagged in triumph and he dared to show a little bit of tooth to Rivak, not quite challenging, but on the verge of it. “Well, there’s the barrel, help yourself. We can’t take it with us when we leave anyway.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be carrying something that big,” said Rivak dismissively, heading over to it, while Teelik indignantly tried to figure out if he’d just been insulted and how so.

“You basically just gave that to them for free,” Shrike muttered, as she handed over the first of the flasks they’d brought to fill.

“I would have anyway, he just wouldn’t have accepted it if he thought it was a gift. They’ve got a long way to travel, and their hunters aren’t as good as ours.” Rivak shot Shrike an amused glance, as he handed Broc the full flask and held out his hand for another. “Besides, we’re headed north and they’re headed south.”

“You mean we’re probably not going to see them again, and Teelik’s going to spend ages wondering what kind of trick you pulled, isn’t he?” Broc asked softly, suppressed laughter in his voice. “Well, maybe if he were a little nicer, he wouldn’t be so suspicious every time someone’s nice to him.”

“Maybe if he thinks about it long enough, he’ll figure out what it actually is. Might even learn something,” said Rivak, straightening up as they filled the last container. They’d filled every one they brought, and Shrike was willing to bet the barrel was much closer to empty now. They’d gotten a good deal, even if Teelik had thought he was getting one over on them. “This is going to be heavy to travel with, maybe we should make Shrike buy the other horse after all.”

“Not on your life,” she retorted. They headed off, Rivak waving a brief goodbye, Broc calling out an optimistic “safe travels!” to the band, both of which Teelik responded to with a dismissive, “yeah, yeah” and didn’t turn to watch them go.

* * *

Marshfire band’s camp wasn’t so far away that they couldn’t make it there and back in a day, but that was at their usual pace. Broc was insisting on an easy pace because “your leg’s still healing, Rivak, and if you tear your stitches out then I’ll put them back without letting you drink anything first.” They ended up making a temporary camp in the early evening, planning to sleep there the night and finish their trip back in the morning.

“The stitches are fine,” Rivak grumbled when Broc scolded him, poking the fire up a little. “If you think I need to rest so much, then I’ll sit right here while you and Shrike go find something for dinner.”

“As you should, oh mighty band leader, while we small underlings rush to serve you.” Broc ducked his head low, eyes averted, and tucked his claws into his fists in a melodramatic display of servility that made Rivak snort and flick one ear back lazily, a response that a hylian would have accomplished by rolling their eyes. Broc straightened up, took Shrike’s elbow, and marched off with her, while she tried valiantly to pretend that this was all very serious.

There wasn’t was much big prey in the area, but Shrike was able to nab a few birds and rabbits for her game bag, and Broc knew what was edible here even though different things grew in the grassy scrubland near the marsh than in the woods. The pair of them were arguing mildly over a gnarled tuber Broc had dug up, Broc insisting it was edible and Shrike insisting that something that ugly couldn’t possibly taste good, when she spotted something odd.

“What’s- is that some kind of cabin?” She squinted, trying to see it better. She’d come across plenty of falling down houses in her travels. Remnants of old villages, all that was left of the people who’d lived happy, idyllic lives there a hundred years ago. She’d never liked going into them, feeling like she was trespassing on something that belonged to a ghost, but even a partial roof as shelter from the rain was better than nothing. This looked like someone had tried to make the frame of one of those old houses into a more encompassing shelter, but they’d done so mostly with tarps and a few haphazardly nailed boards. She couldn’t imagine who would want to live in it, or why. She would have picked sleeping in a tent over sleeping in that; it looked like one stiff wind would blow it down.

“Do you want to go look?” Broc asked, tucking the ugly tuber into his foraging bag like he thought she didn’t see.

“I'm still not eating that. And no, that looks like something ready to fall down on your head if I ever saw-” she cut herself off, because someone had come out of the house, and had obviously seen the pair of them, and that someone was obviously another Hylian. “Shit.” She’d always been careful about making sure other Hylians didn’t see her with the band. The last thing she needed was to get them hurt in an ill conceived rescue attempt. Besides, most Hylians still didn’t like monsters any more than most monsters liked Hylians. But this one was… waving at them? Maybe he had bad eyesight.

“ _Hello_!” he called. The word sounded odd for a moment, and she couldn’t think why, until she realized he was speaking Hylian, faintly accented in a way she didn’t recognize. “ _Hello there, friend! Come on over!_ ”

“It sounds like he’s just talking to me. Maybe he doesn’t see you, stay here,” she murmured to Broc.

“He sounds friendly,” Broc protested. “What’s the harm?”

“Lots of people are good at seeming. If he’s friendly then I’ll call you over after I’ve made sure of it. If he’s not, then you can get a head start running.” She left Broc there, protesting that he wouldn’t leave her behind, and came forward until she got close enough not to have to yell back to be heard.

“ _Hello_ ,” she said, greeting him in Hylian. “ _I don’t see many other Hylians out here.”_

“ _Oh, this is only a temporary research station, I wouldn’t normally be all the way out here you understand, but an opportunity came up that I simply couldn’t pass by- and your bokoblin’s not coming! Call it over, please,_ _I must see it!_ _I’m making a particular study of monsters, you see, and well, when I saw the two of you passing by, I couldn’t believe it! Another incredible opportunity!”_

“You study monsters?” she asked him. He stared at her blankly.

“ _Er… gesundheit? I think I have a_ _handkerchief_ _on me..._ ” He patted his pockets absently.

“ _Don’t worry about it._ _I’ll go get him_.” She walked back over to where Broc was waiting for her, and kept her back turned to the stranger.

“He’s a little weird, but I guess he’s probably harmless. He says he’s studying monsters, but he doesn’t seem to recognize the language. And he really wants to see you. We can still run though,” she added hopefully.

“Maybe this is a good thing! Another Hylian who wants to understand us. What’s the harm in talking to him?” Broc asked.

“I don’t know, he doesn’t come across as someone with all his marbles. Every other self-proclaimed researcher I’ve ever seen had a few screws loose too. One of them talked to this weird ancient sheikah machine like it was his wife,” she muttered. “He says he’s down here to study monsters, and I don’t really want him running into the band. Or any others, to be honest. But maybe if we let him take a look at you, he’ll decide he got what he came for and leave.”

“Or maybe he’s like you,” said Broc stubbornly, “and that will be another Hylian who doesn’t think the only thing we can do is fight with each other.”

“Maybe, but… well, we can see. If you really want to meet him, do me a favor. Pretend you can’t speak Hylian, okay? At least at first. If I’m wrong, you can always speak up later, but if I’m right, I don’t want him to know you understand him. He might try to keep you or something.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” said Broc, a little uncertainly. “But alright. I trust you. You do the talking.”

“Okay. Come on then.” She headed back towards the man, with Broc following this time. The researcher was practically vibrating with excitement, and he lunged forward as soon as Broc was within range, not seeming to notice how the bokoblin startled backwards, eyes wide and ears pinned back.

“ _Amazing! I have such trouble obtaining live specimens you know, and they’re never this docile! How did you manage to tame it? Does this deformity have something to do with it?”_ he asked, leaning down to stare at his twisted leg. Shrike didn’t like the way he examined Broc like a prize curiosity, any more than she liked the word “specimen.” _“My current theory is that the weak and injured are expelled from the pack by the alpha, through an instinct to preserve the overall fitness of the species!”_

“ _Can you back up a little? You’re making him nervous,”_ said Shrike. _“He… might bite you.”_ Broc wouldn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. She was considering biting him actually, if he continued poking at Broc like a secondhand tapestry he was inspecting for unraveled spots.

“ _Oh yes, of course, although I’d love to get a look at that dentition too! Can you get it to come inside? I’d like to take some notes, run some tests...”_

“ _Uh, sure.”_ She glanced at Broc and then took a step forward, signaling to him to let her lead. The researcher didn’t seem to notice that Broc lingered a few steps behind, or that Shrike paused a moment in the doorway, checking inside for an ambush. However there was nothing inside but a table, a rickety cot, and a mess of papers and odd looking instruments.

Broc bore up with his usual patience as the researcher ran a series of increasingly bizarre tests, seeming determined to measure every inch of him, taking his pulse, and shining a light in his eyes. And he chattered the whole time too.

“ _Of course, observation in the field is rather dangerous due to the nature of the subjects, but risks must be taken in the name of science! I have a strong theory that they’re red-green colorblind, and that’s why the weaker red variety always occupy a lower rank in the pack, because they’re perceived as a kind of mobile shrubbery. Hence I always take care to wear green when I’m doing fieldwork so they won’t see me! My working theory, however, is that they are actually a symbiotic relationship between the host mammal, and a species of sentient fungus, which takes up residence on the host and imparts the ability to mimic the most advanced creatures it sees, Hylians of course, which is how they seem to have developed their primitive tool use...”_

“Okay you’re right. He’s weird, but at least he’s rabbit-in-spring crazy, not rabid wolf crazy,” Broc admitted, glancing over at her as the researcher was holding a tape measure up to his ear and recording the length of it, and then flinching as he patted his head like a dog.

“ _Yes, growly growl growl to you too, little friend! How did you get it so tame?”_ he asked, turning to Shrike again. _“Could you get it to hold still while I take a blood sample?”_

“ _Uh, I don’t think-”_

“ _Just a few drops! A prick on the finger with this needle, I assure you sterilize my equipment every morning.”_

“Broc, he wants to poke your finger with a needle and get some of your blood.”

“Why?” Broc asked, giving her a baffled look. “A healer’s supposed to make sure blood stays inside, not take it out.”

“Damned if I know.”

“Well, I guess if it makes him happy...”

“If he does anything more than what he said, you bite him hard anyway.”

“ _Amazing! It almost sounds as though you two were using an actual language!”_ said the researcher happily. _“I assume the staring each other in the eyes and growling is part of a dominance display, where you assert your status as alpha over it to encourage obedience, yes?”_

“ _Uh.”_ He didn’t wait for a reply, which was good because none of her first impulses were polite, seizing Broc’s hand and quickly pricking his finger, collecting the few drops of deep indigo blood that welled up. She had to give it to him, he was fast. Broc looked like he was still trying to decide whether or not that warranted biting by the time he was already done. He did get distracted by Broc’s claws and kept trying to go back to his hand for a second examination, but Broc was delicately keeping it out of his reach.

“ _Is that all the information you need?”_ she asked, sensing that Broc was probably about as done with this as she was. _“I was out hunting and I’ve got meat in my bag that will spoil if it doesn’t get cooked_ _soon_ _.”_

“ _Yes, I think so. Amazing how quickly I was able to get so much data! My_ _last_ _subject_ _was_ _so much less cooperative.”_ Shrike froze.

“ _Last_ _subject?”_ she asked cautiously.

“ _Yes, the reason I’m here in this rather inadequate facility. You are aware, I’m sure, of the phenomenon of the blood moon? Well, here’s the fascinating part, during this phenomenon monsters return to life precisely in the spot where they fell! There’s a band of monsters hanging about nearby, and they got in a fight with some traveler, who I fear had a less scientific mind than I do. Such a shame. Anyway, I staked out this location nearby where tone of them fell, and then it was simply a matter of waiting for it to come back on the next blood moon! It was extremely wild, however. It bit me quite ferociously, and then ran off howling! I think I’ll have to try out your method next time and see if I have any success!”_

“ _You_ _hung around until a_ _red_ _moon, and them ambushed a bokoblin_ _,”_ she repeated incredulously, trying to figure out how the man was still alive.

“ _Yes, a black one, which I suspect is the reason it was so much fiercer, as I’ve noted that the various colors seem to correspond to viciousness. I think it’s due to the presence of a hormone that both adjusts pigmentation and increases aggression! I’ve heard rumors that there are even gold monsters, and that they’re the most vicious fighters of all, but I’ve never seen one for myself, and I think that those are simply credulous legends.”_

“ _Yeah, of course, legends. Listen, you know they get a lot… fiercer during the red moon, right?”_

“ _Oh don’t you worry, I’m well acquainted with the effects of the lunar cycle on monsters! Next time, I shall be sure to approach under the cover of a new moon, whose soothing influence will surely influence them in a more soporific manner. As a matter of fact, I’ve already written a very informative paper on it, I have a copy somewhere around here...”_

“ _Uh, that sounds really great, but actually I can’t read. And I’ve got to get going,”_ she said hastily.

“ _Ah yes, of course.”_ Shrike recognized the look of “ah, the poor uneducated fool doesn’t understand the intricacies of my glorious hobby” and ignored it.

“ _Well, good talking to you then.”_ She shepherded Broc out the door hastily, shaking her head when he attempted to talk to her, until they were well out of earshot.

“Did I understand what you were saying right?” he asked, as soon as she let him get out an uninterrupted word. “I- he really thinks we’re just strange animals?” She winced at his dejected tone. Broc had known how to handle it when Shrike thought he was an enemy. It was harder to deal with someone who thought you were a fluke.

“Look, he’s just some crackpot,” she said, trying to console him, and painfully aware that she was doing a bad job at it. “He thinks you’re a mushroom or something, no one else is going to believe that. It’s probably the real reason he’s out here by himself.”

“The only other Hylian I’ve met who’s interested in us, and he thinks we’re mushrooms,” Broc sighed.

“Honestly, he’s lucky he didn’t get eaten. Did you catch what he said about the red moon?”

“I did. I wonder if it was one of Teelik’s band. Poor thing.” Broc’s ears drooped in dejection. “He said they didn’t all come back. I hope… I hope maybe that was one of them after all.”

“Broc, have-” she stopped herself, biting off the question. That was going too far. But he looked up at her, wise eyes in a curiously young face, like he knew what she’d been asking anyway.

“A few times. Not as many as Rivak.”

“Of course, Rivak doesn’t let anyone in the band beat him at anything, does he?” she asked, her tone soft, giving him the chance to change the subject if he wanted to. He caught her hand and squeezed it gently, silent acknowledgment of his appreciation, but kept talking.

“Around red moons, usually, but sometimes just accidents. A horse spooked and threw me once. Another time I got caught in a rockslide. It’s hard to remember them. Mostly, the coming back is the worst part. I don’t always remember what happened, but I always remember that part. It’s not like waking up. I think it must be like dying in reverse.”

“It won’t happen again.” Shrike was surprised by the conviction in her own voice. As though she thought she could control a rockslide or a panicked horse or a Hylian with a sword, just by wanting to hard enough. “I’ll look out for you.”

“Of course you will.” Broc crinkled his eyes up at her, softly tapping out affection on the back of her hand, the one he hadn’t yet dropped. His expression turned mischievous, just before she would have started to find all this sincerity overwhelming. “You’re our band’s second best warrior, aren’t you? It’s your duty to keep me safe. I’m counting on you!”

“I’m your band’s second warrior, period,” she pointed out wryly.

“Second only to the band leader! We all know you’re good with the bow, and Rivak tells me you’re getting good with the spear.”

“That’s one way of putting it. Getting to be not completely incompetent is another.” Broc crinkled his eyes as he barked out a laugh at that, and the rest of their walk back to Rivak was spent in inconsequential chatter.

* * *

Dinner, that evening, included the weird root, despite Shrike’s best attempts to avoid it. While she prepared the game she’d caught, seasoning them and putting them on spits over the fire to roast, Broc was busy peeling and shredding it. It looked only marginally more attractive with the barklike skin peeled away, warty and off-white, which she pointed out as Broc shredded it.

“You’ll see! Give me some of your butter,” he said cheerfully, which in fact meant “give me a third of the block, and also a handful of your salt.” The shredded root got mixed with salt, a handful of finely chopped little peppers, and the herbs he’d gathered on their way back, and then patted into flat little circles and fried in an inordinate amount of butter, with the pan set underneath the cooking meat so it could also catch the drippings. The scent that came up from they as they started to turn crisp and golden was enough to make her mouth water, and to make Broc inordinately smug.

“Well anything tastes good when you drown it in butter, this probably doesn’t count,” Shrike asserted, but she was also on her third helping so she wasn’t trying very hard to hold the moral high ground here.

“To judge purely by appearance is to miss the things that can’t be seen,” Broc said primly, his cadence different enough from usual to make it clear he was imitating someone else, although she didn’t recognize who. Rivak clearly did though, if his startled bark of laughter was anything to go by.

“You sound just like him,” he said, his tone warmly amused, but with a hint of caution under it that Shrike couldn’t understand.

“Well, I had a lot of time to pick it up,” Broc responded, his own tone content, amused, and oddly gentle as though he was reassuring Rivak that whatever he’d said that had gone unspoken had been alright to say. Or not to say. Shrike was completely lost when it came to whatever silent conversation they were having, based on eye contact and decades of shared history. Broc caught her gaze, and crinkled his eyes reassuringly. “My… my old teacher, used to say that all the time,” he said, letting her in on the joke. “He had some sort of saying for everything. Rivak would show up with yet another self inflicted wound when he fumbled his spear practicing-”

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself- and he’d say something like ‘We always make mistakes, but making the same mistake over again is simple carelessness.’ Or I’d mix poison oak up with springleaf, and he’d just shake his head and say ‘careful observation is the pearl of wisdom.’ I never liked it much when I was slathering jewelweed salve onto my hands for the rash! But, I think he was doing it on purpose. When something annoys you, you think about it for a long time afterward, don’t you?” Broc had a faraway look in his eyes, wistful, fond, and a little sad. “So you remember it. And now I remember his advice, and I remember the differences between poison oak and springleaf. And maybe Rivak even remembers not to drop his spear on his foot,” he added impishly, looking up at their band leader who glowered right back at him.

“I remember it better than you remember to wrap your arms when you’re picking brambleberries,” Rivak retorted, his tone just as impish.

“Hey, you told me all those scratches on your arms were from the red moon when I asked!” Shrike protested. “Broc, those things get inch long thorns, you’ve got to-”

“It was just a few scratches, it’s fine!” Broc protested. “Anyway, if that’s how you want to play it, the things I could tell you about what Rivak’s gotten up to-”

“Nope, I’m invoking my right as band leader to demand silence and obedience,” Rivak said picking Broc up bodily and covering his mouth with one hand. “I’m also demoting you, Shrike is my loyal, _quiet_ second now.” Broc made an incoherent sound and licked Rivak’s hand, making him yank it away with an exasperated shout.

“Put me down you goon, if you wanted silent and obedient you’d be leading a different band,” he said affectionately.

“Maybe I will lead a different band,” Rivak grumbled, but he still set Broc down gently, making sure he was steady on his good leg first.

“You won’t,” said Broc, sounding so completely certain that all Rivak could do was huff at him in mock chagrin.

“Oh go to sleep,” Rivak grumbled, his tone still fond. “We’re getting up first thing in the morning to head back.” He grumbled yet more when the pair of them pulled their bedrolls up next to his (Rivak gave off heat like a furnace even on the coldest nights) but didn’t make them move, tweaking Broc’s ear with undeniable fondness before they closed their eyes.


End file.
